Jefferson Health Looking to Sell Some RE Assets to Welltower
Under the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding, Welltower and Jefferson would create a joint venture whereby Welltower would acquire a stake in certain real estate assets of Jefferson.
PHILADELPHIA—Thomas Jefferson University and the health care system Jefferson Health have reached an agreement to have Toledo, OH-based real estate investment firm Welltower acquire an interest in some of its real estate assets.
Under the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding, Welltower and Jefferson would create a joint venture whereby Welltower would acquire a stake in certain real estate assets of Jefferson. The transactions would be geared at enabling Jefferson to reduce some of its fixed asset investments and redeploy the capital to other clinical and academic strategic areas.
In addition to the joint venture, the companies report that Welltower would help Jefferson accelerate its ambulatory care growth strategy through capital support and predictive analytics to guide future real-estate investments based on where Jefferson clinical services would best serve the public.
“This partnership with Welltower will be a crucial step forward in achieving our ‘healthcare with no address’ innovation strategy,” says Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA, president of Thomas Jefferson University and CEO of Jefferson Health. “By partnering with the best companies across varied sectors, we can bring world-class healthcare from the hospital to the home. We’re thrilled that the great team at Welltower is looking to Jefferson to advance our shared ambitious aim of creating healthier communities.”
Also, part of the MOU, Jefferson’s clinicians would provide care at the Welltower senior housing, assisted living and memory care communities throughout the Philadelphia-New Jersey region as well as future ones the organizations could build together.
Jefferson and Welltower anticipate that a definitive agreement will be executed in the coming 90 days.
Last month, Temple University and Thomas Jefferson University announced they had entered into a binding definitive agreement for the acquisition by Jefferson of Fox Chase Cancer Center, as well as Temple’s Bone Marrow Transplant program.
No financial terms of the pending transaction were disclosed.
Both institutions have emphasized that they envision collaborations that extend far beyond the acquisition, including creating a framework for partnership on cancer discovery and treatment, caring for the underserved, driving innovation, and increasing educational opportunities for students at both universities.
With the definitive agreement in place, Temple and Jefferson expect to close on the transaction in the spring of 2020. The definitive agreement comes after Jefferson, home of the NCI-designated Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, and Temple, home of Fox Chase, an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, announced in January 2019 that they had entered exclusive negotiations.