Beverly Agrees to Acquire 59 Nursing Homes

Beverly Enterprises, the nation’s largest publicly held operator of nursing homes, announced Thursday that it has agreed to acquire 59 nursing home facilities with 6,321 beds from Angell Care Inc.

The acquisition--subject to state, and perhaps federal, approval--would increase Beverly’s number of nursing homes to 1,000, with 112,500 beds in 44 states, the District of Columbia and the province of Ontario in Canada.

Headquartered in Winston-Salem, N.C., privately held Angell Care operates primarily in the Midwest, with more than half of the nursing homes located in Missouri. Angell Group will continue to operate 36 facilities with more than 4,600 beds and three retirement projects in seven states.

Heavy Expansion

David Banks, president of Beverly Enterprises, would not disclose the terms of the agreement but said the nursing homes that Beverly plans to purchase had annual revenue of $90 million last year.

Since it was founded in 1963 with three nursing homes and 245 beds, Beverly Enterprises has expanded through a torrid acquisition pace. Company officials have said that, by the end of 1987, they plan to be operating about 150,000 nursing home beds, representing about 10% of the total available beds in the United States.

Beverly is trying to capitalize on changes in demographic trends and in government policy that have encouraged the utilization of nursing homes. About 6% of people aged 65 and older now live in nursing homes, according to Robert Van Tuyle, chairman and chief executive of Beverly Enterprises. However, that percentage is expected to rise as the baby boom generation ages.

Occupancy Rate Up

What’s more, those patients likely will have more serious health problems; federal cost controls on the government’s Medicare program are encouraging hospitals to discharge recovering patients to the less costly nursing home environment.

That trend has helped boost the average occupancy rate in Beverly Enterprise nursing homes to 90% in 1984 from 88% the previous year. It has also helped improve the company’s bottom line.