Nursing Home Chain Gets Federal Loan Guarantee in Debt Refinance

Regency Health Services Inc., a nursing home operator based in Newport Beach, said Monday that the federal government has guaranteed a low-interest loan of $4.9 million that Regency will use to pay off an existing real estate loan and refurbish a Northern California nursing home.

Chairman Cecil Mays said Monday that the loan, guaranteed by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, was approved last week. The loan carries an interest rate of 8.25%, amortized over 40 years.

Mays said that $3.7 million of the loan, which will be made by Preferred Funding Corp. in Newport Beach, is being used to lower the principal of a $12-million loan owed to Bank of America. The rest of the larger loan was rewritten to a five-year, interest-only note, Mays said.

The balance of the new loan, $1.2 million, is to be used to upgrade a nursing home in Carmichael, a small town outside Sacramento, Mays said. That facility was used as collateral for the HUD loan. Mays said that Regency Health is “exploring a number of different avenues” to pay off the balance of the $12 million when it comes due in 1997.

The company, which went public in June, owns and operates 32 nursing homes, all of which are in California.

In Monday’s trading on the American Stock Exchange, Regency Health’s stock closed at $9.25 a share, down 25 cents.