Leisure World Management Firm Sold : Acquisition: Professional Community Management of El Toro is purchased by a private Baltimore company that plans to provide it with additional capital for expansion.

Professional Community Management Inc., the firm that oversees the 12,736-home Leisure World of Laguna Hills, has been purchased by a Baltimore-based company that plans to provide it with expansion capital.

Robert Elkins, chairman and chief executive officer of Integrated Health Services Inc., said Tuesday that El Toro-based PCM was “the most important part” of a package of business assets it has acquired from Affiliates Group of Nashville, Tenn. for $12.4 million.

Elkins said PCM, which generated revenue of $6 million last year by providing property management services for numerous retirement and other communities in Southern California, fits well into IHS’s business plans.

Four-year-old IHS owns and operates 25 specialized nursing homes and assisted-living facilities for the elderly in 15 states.

IHS is also eager to expand, and officials said PCM will give the company, whose holding are now concentrated in the East and Midwest, its first West Coast presence.

Elkins said PCM’s strong profitability was not its main selling point. “The real attraction is the excellence of their management,” he said. “The ‘90s are a decade of service in elderly health care, and they give about the best service I have seen.”

At Leisure World in Laguna Hills, PCM performs all the community’s security, maintenance, administration and landscaping. It manages the clubhouses, hires the recreation staff and operates the community’s private bus line. The development was designed for retirement-age homeowners.

PCM also provides property management services for other communities in Orange, San Diego and Los Angeles counties. It has a contract with the master association of Aliso Viejo, a community planned for 25,000 homes that the Mission Viejo Co. is developing in South Orange County.

Jeffrey Olsen, longtime chief executive officer of PCM, said he was pleased about the buyout by IHS. This is the third time in the last seven years that PCM, founded in 1972 by a group of businessmen that included Olsen’s father, has changed ownership.

In 1984, PCM was purchased for $1 million by Johnstown American Cos., based in Atlanta. Under that company’s ownership, PCM expanded nationally through acquisitions and then saw its newly acquired assets sold for cash when Johnstown ran into financial difficulty.

In 1987, before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Johnstown sold PCM to Affiliates Group Inc. for about $2 million.

Olsen said PCM was not able to grow geographically or diversify under Affiliates Group, although PCM continued to add more local management contracts to its portfolio.

“They (Affiliates Group) didn’t really use us very effectively,” Olsen said. “We provided them with some cash flow. We didn’t hear from them much.”

By contrast, Elkins said IHS, a private firm with $100 million in annual revenue that plans to go public within the next 12 months, intends to give PCM the capital it needs to grow and diversify.

Olsen said he is considering several new business ventures for PCM, including the management of senior citizen apartments and hotel-like complexes for seniors that provide meals and maid service.

Elkins said IHS is looking for opportunities to buy or build assisted-living facilities for the affluent elderly in California that PCM may manage. In turn, Elkins said IHS is planning to sell its existing home health-care services to residents of Leisure World.

In addition to PCM, IHS acquired 697 retirement, assisted-living units and long-term care beds from Affiliates Group, expanding the company by nearly 25%. IHS now operates 4,026 beds.

As part of the transaction, IHS will assume the management of two retirement/assisted-living centers with a total of 327 units in Fresno, Calif., and Memphis, Tenn. Both retirement communities will continue to be owned by Liberty Real Estate Corp. of Boston.