Care home investor Impact Healthcare REIT has collected 100% of rents in advance for the current quarter, but occupancy falls by 8%.
As a result of the uninterrupted collection, the company has reaffirmed its intention to pay its second-quarter interim dividend, for the period from 1 April to 30 June, in line with expectations with an announcement due in mid-August.
The covid-19 impact on care homes has been well documented, but Impact has said that, as of 6 July, just six out of its 96 care homes had a small number of isolated confirmed cases.
The number of deaths caused by covid-19 in the group’s homes peaked in late April 2020, in line with the wider UK care home sector, but has since then the death rate has returned to more normal levels.
From early March, all of the group’s homes were closed to visitors and in many cases to new admissions. As a result, over the 17 weeks between the first week in March and the last week of June the number of occupied beds in the company’s portfolio reduced from 4,225 to 3,873, a fall of 8%.
The group’s tenants have now begun focussing on reopening homes to new admissions. As part of this process, Impact Healthcare will support tenants by purchasing and installing thermal scanners at all its homes. The scanners will support tenants’ existing infection control procedures through enabling the remote reading of the body temperature of all staff and visitors who are entering the building.
IHR : Impact Healthcare collects 100% of rents but occupancy falls by 8%