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Omega Healthcare Investors, Inc. takes the unusual tack of investing not in general healthcare, but specifically in assisted living and skilled nursing facilities that look after seniors in the US and the UK. Their work not only benefits patients, but investors as well.
And those investors include some pretty big names in the industry. Stifel Financial Corp.’s Thom Weisel is an investor, as are many top names in the world of hedge funds—82.78% of Omega Healthcare’s stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors, in fact.
Since 1992, Omega Healthcare Investors, a triple-net equity REIT (NYSE:OHI) has operated with the goal of supporting skilled nursing facilities and assisted living facilities with financing and capital. Today they are partnered with more than 80 operators in the US and the UK. OHI’s $1.25 billion unsecured credit facility and access to public equity and debt markets around the world help these facilities serve seniors in a variety of communities.
With today’s seniors living longer than ever—often into their 80s and 90s—the facilities that serve them need to meet a whole new set of criteria, including amenities, décor, and care. In order to be able to afford those upgrades, they rely on companies like OHI and their investors.
If altruism isn’t enough of a draw for investors, they also have the opportunity to do quite well financially with OHI. The OHI stock currently trades at $32.13 with a market capitalization of $6.28 billion. And analysts are expecting that number to rise steadily with forecasted earnings of $0.83 per share. On January 12 of this year, OHI’s Board of Directors announced a common stock dividend of $0.62 per share, which is $0.01 per share over the previous quarter. They will pay out to common stockholders on Wednesday, February 15.
If new investors are still waffling, they need only look to OHI CEO C. Taylor Pickett, who recently bought 21,800 shares of his own company. He now owns a total of 276,261 shares valued at $8,083,396.86—not too shabby!
Whether you’re an investor or a beneficiary of OHI’s funds, the future of senior facilities is definitely looking up.
