Recently,
Ventas Inc.
(
VTR
) unveiled the pricing of $500 million senior notes offering. The
move will help Ventas generate proceeds that will increase its
financial flexibility, repay debt, meet working capital needs and
finance acquisitions and investment moves.
Specifically, Ventas priced the public offering of $500 million
aggregate principal amount of 2.700% senior notes due 2020 at
99.942% of the principal amount. The offering is expected to
close on Mar 19, 2013 and the notes were issued by its operating
partnership - Ventas Realty Limited Partnership and a wholly
owned subsidiary - Ventas Capital Corporation.
Citigroup Inc.
(
C
), Credit Agricole CIB, Jefferies and
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
(
JPM
) served as joint book-running managers for the notes offering.
Notably, as of Dec 31, 2012, Ventas had $541 million of
borrowings outstanding under its unsecured revolving credit
facility and $68 million of cash and cash equivalents. Moreover,
at quarter-end, debt to total capitalization stood at 31% and
net-debt-to-adjusted-pro-forma-EBITDA (earnings before interest,
tax, depreciation and amortization) was 5.4x.
In Conclusion
Of late, Ventas disclosed that it has established an
"at-the-market" equity offering program. Under the program, the
company has the option to sell up to a total of $750 million of
its common stock.
We believe that Ventas' focus on maintaining a balanced and
flexible balance sheet with ample liquidity would enable it to
operate efficiently, tide over the near term constraints and
capitalize on potential acquisition and investment opportunities.
This, in turn, would help augment its top line. Moreover, paying
back of debt would reduce its interest expenses.
Ventas currently retains a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). However, another
REIT stock that is performing well and is worth a look includes
Omega Healthcare Investors Inc.
(
OHI
), carrying a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
CITIGROUP INC (C): Free Stock Analysis Report
JPMORGAN CHASE (JPM): Free Stock Analysis
Report
OMEGA HLTHCARE (OHI): Free Stock Analysis
Report
VENTAS INC (VTR): Free Stock Analysis Report
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