ARC Healthcare REIT Will Trade on National Exchange

NEW YORK CITY-Having told investors this past summer that AR Capital LLC was moving away from non-traded net lease REITs, Nicholas Schorsch said late Friday afternoon that a non-traded REIT in another sector would soon be traded. The board of American Realty Capital Healthcare Trust Inc., of which Schorsch is chairman and CEO, has determined it's in shareholders' best interests for the company to begin trading common stock on a national exchange.

The board on Friday announced that it intended to file an application to list the stock under the symbol HCT. It's expected that the common stock will be listed in the first quarter of next year.

The move is consistent with ARC Healthcare's previously announced decision to examine its strategic alternatives in line with its long-term business strategy. This past spring, ARC Healthcare's board began evaluating possible alternatives designed to maximize stockholder value.

"Our management team has worked hard and long to build the best portfolio of healthcare real estate assets,” says Thomas P. D'Arcy, CEO of American Realty Capital Healthcare Advisors LLC. “We have purchased these properties at the right time in the real estate cycle, buying strong locations around the nation with creditworthy tenants, and have built a diversified pool of medical office buildings, hospitals and senior living facilities. We believe the public traded markets will be very receptive to an offering of this sort."

Schorsch calls D'Arcy “the ideal executive to lead ARC Healthcare on to an exchange. He has been a NYSE CEO previously, and therefore has a deep understanding of what behaviors the market rewards and what he will need to do to deliver stockholder value."

ARC Healthcare, which qualified as a REIT for tax purposes in 2011, expects to provide additional information regarding its strategic alternatives in the coming weeks. Merrill Lynch and RCS Capital, a division of Realty Capital Securities LLC, consulted on the board's decision.