20 Sep 2016

Arvida buying three villages for $66m

12:18 pm on 20 September 2016

Aged care company Arvida is to buy three established retirement villages as it looks for growth in earnings.

The company is paying $66 million for the sites, two in Tauranga and one in Cambridge, which have a mix of retirement villas, hospital and dementia care beds, and spare land for development.

"These acquisitions are on strategy and provide us with a presence in two key New Zealand regions experiencing high growth in aged care and retirement living," Arvida Chairman Peter Wilson said.

Arvida currently operates 22 villages and aged heathcare facilities around the country, offering a total of nearly 1400 beds and 1250 units.

It is paying for the new acquisitions through a mix of debt and a $42m issue of new shares to current shareholders, on the basis of one new share for every seven held at $1.05 each, a near 12 percent discount to its last traded price.

Arvida said the new villages would add $4.4m to its underlying earnings in the current financial year.

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