3rd Mar 2008 07:01
Southern Cross Healthcare Grp PLC03 March 2008 Southern Cross Healthcare acquires The Portland Group and private care home -- Adds a further 422 beds and expands 'daycare' activities -- Monday, 3 March 2008 - Southern Cross Healthcare Group PLC (LSE: SCHE)('Southern Cross' or the 'Company'), the UK's largest care home operator, todayannounces that it has acquired 368 high quality elderly care beds plus 126daycare placements in seven modern, purpose built care homes from The PortlandGroup for £42m. The freehold interest of the seven homes, which are all locatedin the North East of England, will be sold to a landlord fund and Southern Crosswill retain the operating business for a nominal consideration. The Company has also acquired a high quality care home in Worcester thatprovides a further 54 beds which will be integrated into the Group's AshbourneSenior Living portfolio, which now stands at 81 homes. The Group also announces today that it has agreed terms to extend its currentacquisition facility by £46 million to £106 million. This increased facilitywill be used to fund today's acquisition and give us more flexibility to fundfuture growth. Since 30 September 2007, the Company has increased total registered beds by7.3%. Southern Cross now operates 36,823 beds in 723 care homes. Our homescurrently provide 245 daycare placements and we are looking to increase this. Bill Colvin, Chief Executive Officer of Southern Cross, commented: "We arepleased to announce the acquisition of The Portland Group which not only addsanother seven high quality, modern care homes to our portfolio but also expandour care offering to include daycare, which I believe will become anincreasingly important element of elderly care." Enquiries: Southern Cross Healthcare Group PLC+44 (0)1325 351100Bill Colvin, Chief ExecutiveJason Lock, Finance Director Financial Dynamics+44 (0)20 7831 3113David Yates/Deborah Scott/Emma Thompson About Southern Cross Southern Cross is, in terms of number of beds, the largest UK provider of carehome services for the elderly and a major provider of specialist services forpeople with physical and/or learning disabilities. The Company's care homes forthe elderly operate under two distinct brands: Southern Cross Healthcare andAshbourne Senior Living. Both brands provide a range of social and personalcare services and nursing care services for elderly people with physicalfrailties and differing forms of dementia. The Company's specialist servicesoperate under the Active Care Partnerships brand and provide long-term careservices for people with physical and/or learning disabilities and for youngerpeople with complex forms of challenging behaviour. Southern Cross is focused on providing high quality care in well investedfacilities, seeking to be the home of choice in each local community in which itoperates. The Company provides care services for most of the local authoritiesin the UK which, together with the NHS, represent over circa 70% of theCompany's revenues. Its care home portfolio is largely purpose-built with ahigh percentage of single occupancy rooms and rooms with ensuite bathrooms.Occupancy levels in its core elderly segment are consistently in excess of 90%. This announcement includes statements that are, or may deemed to be, "forwardlooking statements". These forward looking statements can be identified by theuse of forward looking terminology, including the terms "believes", "estimates","plans", "projects", "anticipates", "expects", "intends", "may", "will", or "should" or, in each case, their negative or other variations or comparableterminology. These forward looking statements include matters that are nothistorical facts and include statements regarding the Company's intentions,beliefs or current expectations concerning, among other things, the Company'sresults of operations, financial condition, liquidity, prospects, growth,strategies and the outlook on the care home industry. By their nature, forwardlooking statements involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to futureevents and circumstances. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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