Health Care REIT Offers $124M in Common Stock

Health Care REIT Inc. has offered 3 million shares of common stock at $41.44 per share, for an estimated total gross proceeds of $124.3 million. A 30-day option to the underwriters to purchase up to an additional 450,000 shares to cover over-allotments, if any, has the potential to bring total gross proceeds to $143 million. The company has announced that it will use the net proceeds from the offering “to invest in additional health care and senior housing properties,” according to a prepared statement, and pending that use, to repay borrowings under its unsecured line of credit. “We are targeting combination or CCRC [continuing-care retirement community] properties in senior housing and care,” firm CEO George Chapman told CPN today. “And in the medical office building and acute-care space, we believe that many of the new medical office buildings and acute-care assets will be much more customer-friendly and will stress wellness and one-stop shop.”The offering is expected to close on March 10, 2008, subject to customary closing conditions. Deutsche Bank Securities and UBS Investment Bank are joint bookrunning managers for the offering. HCN is an equity REIT investing in senior housing and health care real estate, including continuing-care retirement communities, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing, hospitals, long-term acute-care hospitals and medical office buildings. Founded in 1970, it was the first REIT to invest exclusively in healthcare properties. As of the end of the third quarter last year, HCN’s portfolio consisted of more than 600 properties in 38 states, with total gross real estate assets of approximately $5.2 billion and a market cap of approximately $6.5 billion. In a February announcement giving HCN’s 2007 EOY results, Chapman noted that the REIT had generated a 9 percent total return for stockholders for the year. The company also completed $1.1 billion in net new investments, received debt upgrades from both Moody’s and Fitch, expanded its unsecured lines of credit to $1.15 billion, and raised $894 million of capital through three transactions and DRIP.