NEW YORK CITY-Newcastle Investment Corp. said Monday evening that it had entered into an agreement to acquire a 52-property portfolio of senior housing properties for $1.01 billion from affiliates of Holiday Retirement Corp. The portfolio runs to 5,885 units across 24 states.

Newcastle, which earlier on Monday announced a stock offering of 50 million common shares to help fund the acquisition, said Monday night that it expects to invest about $300 million of equity to acquire the Holiday portfolio and to fund the remainder of the purchase price with non-recourse mortgage debt. The portfolio is 100% private pay and had an average occupancy rate of 91% as of this past Sept. 30. Concurrently with the closing of the Holiday acquisition, Newcastle plans to enter into two triple net master leases with affiliates of Holiday with first-year rent equal to 6.5% of the purchase price.

Upon closing the Holiday acquisition, Newcastle will have invested about $600 million of equity in senior housing assets. Including the Holiday acquisition and other committed transactions, Newcastle's senior housing portfolio will run to 99 properties with 12,347 rentable units, and is targeted to generate a 17% FFO yield in 2014.

Newcastle expects the transaction in December, subject to customary conditions. Holiday is the largest private owner and operator of senior housing properties in North America, operating 333 properties with 40,000 apartments in 43 states across the US and in seven Canadian provinces. It's majority owned by private equity funds managed by an affiliate of Newcastle's manager.