Changes in Health Care Landscape Offer Opportunities, HCP CEO Says

Jay Flaherty, chairman and CEO of HCP, Inc. (NYSE: HCP), joined REIT.com for a CEO Spotlight video interview in Chicago at REITWeek 2013: NAREIT’s Investor Forum.

HCP invests in real estate serving the health care industry. The firm acquires, develops, leases, sells and manages health care real estate and is a capital partner to health care providers. Flaherty discussed the prospects for growth going forward in the health care REIT sector.

“Within medical office buildings, in part because of the advent of incremental technologies that allow for certain procedures that historically were done in an acute care hospital  setting, particularly non-invasive procedures now, they can take place in a medical office building,” he said. “So the medical office building portfolio of, maybe, 10 years ago was primarily used for doctor visits. Now you’re seeing some procedures actually take place in these medical office buildings."

Flaherty described HCP’s sustainability program.

“We’ve used sustainability in a much more comprehensive manner,” he said.  “Particularly in the life science and medical office building area, we’re very proud to have a number of LEED certified properties. We’ve earned over 100 Energy Star designations, far and away the leader in that space. So that’s all good, but when we take that to the next level, in the last year and a half we’ve taken a board of director approach on down. We want to be a good corporate citizen.”

Flaherty also talked about how health care reform is affecting his business.

“I think we’ll see a number of companies get quite a bit larger, because health care reform will reward companies that create quality outcomes, have critical mass, particularly in local markets, and run efficient operations,” he said.

Flaherty said the results of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act should bring new opportunities for his company.

“As this plays out in the next 12 to 18 months, it’s going to create significant opportunities for our operating partners and, as a second derivative, HCP, because we want to continue to be their real estate capital partner of choice,” he said.