THE allure of the grey euro is attracting investors to a healthcare fund that has acquired 10 nursing homes in just over a year and is on track to raise €250m within the next six months.

Aperee, the operational arm of BlackBee Healthcare Fund, announced its tenth acquisition this week, the purchase of Havenwood Retirement Village, a 64-bed home in Ballygunner Co Waterford, nine months after it acquired its first home, the 52-bed Padre Pio Nursing Home in Churchtown, Mallow, Co Cork. Industry sources indicate a figure of €8m for Havenwood. To date, Aperee has spent c€20m on acquisitions.

Chartered accountant Paul Kingston, CEO of Aperee, said they have so far acquired 563 beds with 700 staff.

He said the fund was “going very well” and that there was “a lot of institutional money coming in” as well as private investor cash.

The targeted return for investors over seven years is an IRR of 11%.

“We set out last year (July 2019) that we wanted to raise €250 and we are well on the way to achieving that in the next six months,” Mr Kingston said. 

He previously oversaw the sale of CareChoice, a brand that operated six care homes in Dublin, Cork and Waterford, to French investment fund InfraVia Capital Partners.

Aperee’s approach is two-pronged: acquisition of easy-to-expand trading homes and build-to-operate homes on greenfield sites, of which the first  will be on the site of the former Church of Ireland Rectory in Glanmire, Cork. With planning permission granted in June, Mr Kingston said they hope to have builders on site in January 2021 where the proposal is for a 100-bed nursing home facility, housed in a planned 6,200 sq m three-storey extension to the existing property. 

The proposal also involves the building of a Montessori school on the 5.8 acre prime site as part of a c€12m development. 

In addition, Mr Kingston said they are “sale agreed” on a number of other sites “which we are looking at closing out by the end of the year or early next year".

“A few of them are around Cork city, one is in Limerick and there are some in the big regional towns,” he said.

He said all of their greenfield focus was on Munster. He also said they had no plans to halt acquisitions.

“We are never going to stop looking for good homes.

“It’s a space we want to fill. Our focus is on ensuring that we provide excellent care. Once we achieve that, everything else will fall into place.” 

While the nursing home sector was experiencing a lot of change driven by Covid-19, it was clear there was a demand for quality care homes, Mr Kingston said.

This demand was set to grow and the gap between supply and demand would widen “significantly”, Mr Kingston said, based on demographic predictions.

Ireland’s population currently has 637,000 over 65s and 67,000 over 85s. By 2040 it is estimated that this will increase to 1.2 million over 65s and 216,000 over 85s. This is against a backdrop of approximately 30,000 residential beds, a figure Aperee says will need to double by 2040 to meet demand.

Aperee has no plans to move into the Dublin market, which Mr Kingston said is currently attracting a lot of foreign investment.

"We want to keep our homes as geographically close as possible. The Dublin market is fairly hot right now, we are happy to focus on Munster," he said.

The BlackBee Healthcare Fund previously announced plans for the construction of 600 state-of-the-art single ensuite beds and the acquisition of 1,100 existing beds, with the latter target halfway to being met.

In August, Aperee announced the takeover of seven Ditchley group nursing homes in counties Cork, Kerry, Kilkenny and Galway. Homes currently operating under the Aperee brand include Cramers Court Nursing Home in Kinsale, Conna Nursing Home in Conna, Co Cork and Deerpark Nursing Home in Bantry, as well as the Mallow home (referenced above). In Kerry, homes include Ocean View Nursing Home outside Tralee, and Aperee Living in Tralee (formerly Cúil Didín). Strathmore Lodge in Callan, Co Kilkenny is also part of the Aperee brand, as are Millrace Nursing Home in Ballinsloe, Co Galway and Coral Haven Nursing home on Galway's Headford Road.