New York-based property investment company NorthStar Realty Finance Corp. has agreed to buy Griffin-American Healthcare REIT for $4 billion in a cash-and-stock deal.
Nearly 75 percent of Griffin-American’s holdings are comprised of medical office buildings and senior housing facilities in the United States and the United Kingdom, according to a statement from NorthStar. The purchase follows NorthStar’s $1 billion acquisition of senior housing and nursing home buildings in March.
The transaction is the biggest health care real estate deal in three years, Bloomberg News reported. Three other bidders – Chicago’s Ventas, Health Care REIT Inc. of Toledo, Ohio and investor Nicholas Schorsch’s American Realty Capital Healthcare REIT – were also finalists in the bidding process, according to the Wall Street Journal.
NorthStar expects the transaction to close in the fourth quarter of 2014. [Bloomberg News] and [WSJ] – Tom DiChristopher