Byline: MIKE COLIAS
Investors are applying a senior citizens' discount to Brookdale Senior Living Inc.
Shares of Chicago-based Brookdale have sunk 40% over the past 12 months as the housing slump stoked concern over the company's ability to populate its retirement communities. Seniors typically sell their homes and use the cash toward entry fees that average $175,000 for Brookdale's retirement units. But with home sales slowing to a trickle, the flow of new customers-and cash-is drying up.
"The downturn in housing has hit them hard,'' says Alan Ware, a partner at Pike Place Capital Management LLC, a New York-based hedge fund that tracks the industry but doesn't ...