Apollo Is Buying an HCP Senior-Housing Portfolio

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Apollo Global Management LLC is the mystery buyer that’s under contract to purchase a $428 million portfolio from HCP Inc., according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

The New York firm is buying 22 properties managed by Brookdale Senior Living Inc., said the person, who asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential. HCP said on June 5 that it was under contract to sell the portfolio, which comprises for 2,781 units, to a third party without revealing its identity. The deal has yet to close.

Representatives for Apollo and HCP didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

HCP -- which also owns medical-office buildings and life-science properties -- has been selling chunks of senior housing in an attempt to bolster its balance sheet and reduce its lease exposure to Brookdale.

In two separate transactions over the past 18 months, the Irvine, California-based real estate investment trust generated $812 million by selling a portfolio of 49 senior housing assets to a group led by Columbia Pacific Advisors LLC. HCP also sold six properties back to Brookdale for $275 million in a deal that closed in April, and separately sold 64 Brookdale communities comprising 5,697 units to Blackstone Group LP in a $1.13 billion transaction completed last year.

HCP has fallen 26 percent in the past 12 months, under-performing the Bloomberg REIT Healthcare Index, which has dropped 19 percent in the same period, mostly due to the rising interest-rate environment.

“We believe HCP is strategically in a solid position in the more challenging health-care REIT sector, or ‘like a good house in a rough neighborhood,’” Evercore ISI analysts said in a recent research note.

Emerging Asia to Suffer Most From Strong Dollar, Macquarie Says

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Asia’s emerging-market currencies may be the biggest casualties of dollar strength this year, Macquarie Bank Ltd. says.

The risk-off mood prevailing in global markets caused by the U.S.-China trade dispute is likely to persist and amplify the dollar’s traditional haven role, said Gareth Berry, senior vice president FX and rates strategy at Macquarie.

“For the last three months or so most of the dollar strength was concentrated against the euro because people were selling euro-dollar and that filtered through the whole system,” he said in Sydney. “The next phase of dollar strength probably won’t be against the euro. We see scope for the dollar to strengthen more against EM Asia in particular, and perhaps the whole EM world rather than other developed markets.”

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The Bloomberg JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against eight developing Asian currencies and those of Singapore and Hong Kong, has dropped more than 3 percent from this year’s high set in January. The gauge fell on Tuesday to the lowest since November.

The beleaguered Australian dollar is also poised to suffer as the greenback strengthens, Berry said. The Aussie will probably test 71.80 U.S. cents in the next two-to-three months as it becomes an indirect victim of capital flight from emerging-market Asian currencies, which make up more than half of a basket representing Australia’s trading partners, he said.