Homes deal looms
A YORK-based care home operator is in negotiations to buy six facilities in the North East.
Park Lane Healthcare remained tight-lipped on the exact locations of the homes but said it was hopeful of completing the purchases - the company’s first in the North-east - within months.
The move is part of the company’s plans to more than double the number of people it has under its care from 370 to around 800. It runs homes in Barnsley, Rotherham, Chorley, Cottingham near Hull, and Little Weighton in East Yorkshire.
Recently Park Lane raised £18.3m to buy the freehold of five of the homes it runs from Quercus Healthcare Property Partnership and to re-finance a sixth.
The deal followed a re-finance arrangement from the Royal Bank of Scotland and was based on a business plan prepared by Middlesbrough accountants Chipchase Manners.
Park Lane chairman, Chris Mitchell, said banks were willing to back care home ventures that were run by experienced operators with “a good reputation and good occupancy levels”. “The care sector is a growth industry - what the banks call a green light sector,” he said.
Park Lane has an average occupancy rate of 96%, well above the national average of 89.8% recorded in Laing and Buisson’s Care of Elderly People UK Market Survey 2009.
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