Data from Lisa Benston, Colliers PKF Hospitality Research, and Kindred Healthcare, Inc.

Kindred Healthcare to Add 5 Hospitals & 3 Nursing / Rehabilitation Centers

Edited: Lisa Benston Source: Kindred Healthcare, Inc.

Hospital Industry Stable

Kindred Healthcare, Inc. (the “Company”) today announced that its subsidiaries have signed a definitive agreement to acquire five long-term acute care (“LTAC”) hospitals from Vista Healthcare, LLC (“Vista”) for a purchase price of $180 million in cash.

“We are excited to have these new employees join our organization and believe they bring resources and expertise that will complement our existing operations and local teams. These transactions also will provide our new colleagues with additional opportunities for professional growth and development.”

Vista operates four freestanding hospitals and one hospital-in-hospital with a total of 250 beds all located in southern California. The assets being acquired currently generate annualized revenues of approximately $150 million and earnings before interest, income taxes, depreciation and amortization of approximately $27 million. The Company is not acquiring the working capital of Vista or assuming any of its liabilities. All of the Vista hospitals are leased. The Company expects to finance the transaction with proceeds from its revolving credit facility.

Industrial Distribution Warehouses are finally showing signs of recovery, with increased demand, lower supplies and expectations of rising rentals.

ProLogis released a new research report on the state of the industrial property markets in the United States and Canada. The report is based on market statistics compiled from a variety of sources, including ProLogis market officers, brokerage companies and data providers. The information covers the top 31 distribution property markets in the United States and Canada during the first half of 2010.

"By midyear 2010 the nation's distribution property leasing markets were finally showing signs of recovery," commented Leonard Sahling, first vice president of the ProLogis Research Group. "With the U.S. economy on the mend and with very little new supply in the pipeline, the stage is set for a continuing recovery in the nation's distribution property leasing markets."

Detailed findings in the report include the following:

• The overall vacancy rate for bulk distribution space across the top markets edged down to 10.2 percent during the second quarter of 2010 from 10.4 percent in the first quarter of 2010, after having been virtually flat during the two previous quarters.
• Total occupied space (realized demand) climbed 15 million square feet during the second quarter of 2010, a modest 0.2 percent increase, but still well above the tiny gains posted in the previous two quarters.
• Asking rents in the major markets slipped 1.6 percent on average in the second quarter of 2010, their ninth consecutive quarterly decline. Asking rents are now 18.4 percent below their cyclical peak in the first quarter of 2008.
• New completions are on track to set a new record low in 2010. What few new starts there are consist almost exclusively of build-to-suit projects for specific customers.
• In view of the mounting losses on their commercial real estate construction loan portfolios, it is doubtful that U.S. banks will be willing to provide construction financing for new commercial real estate projects for the next several years.
• Looking ahead, some real estate analysts are contemplating the possibility of rent spikes within the distribution property markets in 2012 or 2013.

Dear Readers,

Millions of Foreclosures May Not Happen

I saw this article and it represents the fears that many people have in the emerging new "systems" that seem to take individual rights away. Like the "Credit Scoring System", which big credit card companies use to make credit decisions automatically then blame it on the system when it ruins the credit lives of borrowers, this could do the same to home ownership and investment. As an appraiser, I have personally witnessed and audited the "missing" documentation that is often present in bank credit files. We did a research study on one large bank, and found numerous loans on houses in their files that the properties simply did not exist. The homes that were financed did not exist. Of course, there are those who think the banking system is so powerful that it can change the law, and

Giant banks have managed to manipulate

politicians and the law

protect themselves from more losses. Three issues are at stake here. 1. Competence as well as diligence in making good loans while documenting files honestly and fully.

2. Ethical issues relating to the direction of loan policies, and marketing.

3. The construction and reliance on systems that "dehumanize" loans and make people pawns of "giant computerized polls of mortgage and credit data", which can spin out billions of bytes of data, without consideration for human tragedy.

A NEW KEY FOR SURVIVAL OF DAIRY OPERATIONS!

Jackie Klippenstein, V.P. of the Dairy Farmers of America loves her job. "I am helping an important sector of our nation survive and be more efficient." she said. We are lucky to have Jackie and people like her, because the economy has been tough on dairy farmers.

Red Barn

The economic crash just didn’t impact Wall Street. Every time you drink a glass of milk, send a kind thought to dairy operators. It became so bad for a while that industry leaders were worried about suicides. "We started a hot line to help", said Jackie.

Algov.com reported: "About 40% of all dairy farms (or 46,000) went out of business from 1999 to 2009, due to falling milk prices and rising costs. Farmers went from getting $21.70 per hundred pounds of milk to $11.30 from 2007 to 2009, while animal feed costs increased 35% and fuel prices rose 30%." During that period, utility bills quietly increased as well.

Mike Dominy, from Alto, in Cherokee County, south of Tyler, Texas said: “The Industry is doomed to certain demise if something is not done quickly”. The Dairy Farmers of America has taken progressive steps to provide information, tools, and training to help Dairy Farmers in this environment. Some initiatives out of Washington D.C. look promising, and there is hope that the worst is over.

Farmer helping "mom"

Real Estate Across County

Is Selling, but Discounted

In Texas, the market has been not hit as hard as in other areas, because of the agricultural, oil, defense and technology industries.

But many commercial realtors report that they are seeing commercial properties sell, but at much lower prices. The good news is that there is movement. Dollars are moving. The bad news is that they are moving at discounted prices. The follow up good news is that slowly the inventory of over leveraged property loans is being absorbed.

If interest rates will just stay down another year, billions of dollars of bad loans should have re-structured with new borrowers, and on sounder footings.

In the meantime, everyone is hoping for, working for, waiting for recovery! The government, the states, cities, business, investors and workers.

Everyone is pushing for recovery!

While we wait for recovery, it is said that 7000 bankruptcies are filed every day in the USA. 1,400,000 Americans went broke in 2009, and some estimate that 1,750,000 to 2,000,000 could go broke in 2010.

While you read this article 30 Americans will file Bankruptcy.

TURN-AROUND SPECIALISTS ARE AT A PREMIUM, WORTH THEIR WEIGHT IN GOLD

Checking, Cordination, Communication and Teamwork!

Those rare executives who have lived through booms and busts, and developed skills for survival have become known as “turn around” specialists. They have become valuable individuals to business in this “worst economy of 40 years”.

Consider where our nation’s businesses stand. In 2009 there were about 1,450,000 bankruptcy filings in th USA. Bob Lawless says: “Bankruptcy filings are running about 6,000 to 7500 per day”, and it is expected that in 2010 there will be 1,750,000 bankruptcies.

Corporate debt is one of the big reasons, and especially small business is feeling the pressure of banks and credit card companies, who issued liberal lines of credit from 2000 to 2009, and now are cutting back. Some of the bankruptcies are caused by bank policy. One small business reported that they had a corporate credit card line for sales representatives of $160,000, and when the secretary was 5 days late on the payment, CityCard raised the company credit card interest rate from 9.5% to 28%. CityCard explained; "It is just our policy", not seeming to understand that this "policy" makes the economy, and their collections even worse.

“Instantly, they also reduced our credit line and then within two weeks, American Express, Bank of America and others also reduced credit lines.” said the business C.E.O.

GM Makes $865,000,000 Profit for First Quarter, 2010

GM Volt

Back in 1971 when I was working for Merrill Lynch, an economist in New York told me:

“What is good for General Motors is good for the nation.” He said, GM was so integrated with the U.S. economy at so many levels, that the two were inextricably entwined.

Well after years of poor management, bad decisions, international competition, bankruptcy, and a U.S. Government take over, General Motors made a profit.

Credit Defalt Swap

With Goldman Sachs in the headlines it is obvious that Wall Street was involved in non transparent, "gambles", using complicated instruments which tried to "legitimize" dangerous hedges and gambles, to the detriment of investors around the world.

CDS's and CDO's were the instruments of choice, and so difficult to understand that only a few really knew that these instruments were really paper, that tried to disguise the risk. These instruments, in many cases were not worth the paper that they were written on.

DEFINITIONS:

A credit default swap (CDS) is a swap contract in which the protection buyer of the CDS makes a series of payments to the protection seller and, in exchange, receives a payoff if a credit instrument (typically a bond or loan) goes into default.

Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) are a type of structured asset-backed security (ABS) whose value and payments are derived from a portfolio of fixed-income underlying assets. CDOs securities are split into different risk classes, or tranches, whereby "senior" tranches are considered the safest securities. Interest and principal payments are made in order of seniority, so that junior tranches offer higher coupon payments (and interest rates) or lower prices to compensate for additional default risk.

A few academics, analysts and investors such as Warren Buffett and the IMF's former chief economist Raghuram Rajan warned that CDOs, other ABSs and other derivatives spread risk and uncertainty about the value of the underlying assets more widely, rather than reduce risk through diversification. Following the onset of the 2007-2008 credit crunch, this view has gained substantial credibility. Credit rating agencies failed to adequately account for large risks (like a nationwide collapse of housing values) when rating CDOs and other ABSs.

Many CDOs are valued on a mark to market basis and thus have experienced substantial write-downs on the balance sheet as their market value has collapsed.

Thousands "hoping" to get

rich in travel business!

Dallas Convention Center, April 24th and 25th. This company, following an "AmWay" type direct team marketing approach, has become one of the fastest growing companies in the United States. People are invited to join and become travel representatives with a personalized and sophisticated Travel Booking Web site, called Rovia. The company buys travel and lodging in bulk and claims surveys prove that they offer lower prices than Travelocity and Orbitz. (click http://bbar.worldventures.biz)

If you have a church, class, business group, club, or group, that enjoys travel, especially travel for resort vacations, you can save them money, and either make money, or donate it back to your group by the thousands of dollars.

The company offers benefits such as health care insurance, accounting advice, travel consulting, sophisticated web videos and hundreds of discount international vacations, all for a sign up fee of about $350.

If a person "recruits" four other people to join World Ventures, then he pays no "dues or monthly fees" for life. Thus, the company has built in a motivation for growth.

We saw a room filled with thousands, most of them below the age of 40, many are beautiful, single, or couples without children who love to travel.

A former banker advises commercial property owners to "appraise commercial real estate to protect it from bottom feeders".

Protect your assets

with an appraisal

All across the USA, on courthouse steps, foreclosures are happening.

With cash flow down, many business people simply cannot keep up with payments.

I know a man, formerly worth millions, who had a property worth $1,000,000. He had a loan on it for $800,000. He became behind on his payments, so the bank foreclosed on the property. But, when they "bid" in the foreclosure price, the lender bid it in at $300,000. So technically, the bank "bought" the property back for $300,000. The bank quickly liquidated the property to a friend of the bank for $500,000 and then filed a judgement on the original owner, for a "deficit" of $300,000.

My friend not only lost his property, but he also had a judgement against him by the court for the $300,000 that he still owed.