While it was highly publicized that Grubb & Ellis Co.’s brokerage division had suffered ills during the recession, and several brokers and teams moved on to other firms, its investment-management division and the REITs it co-sponsored and advised could have been unfortunate casualties. Instead, the senior executives that had been in charge of managing Grubb & Ellis Healthcare REIT II started American Healthcare Investors to co-sponsor the REIT and renamed it Griffin-American Healthcare REIT II shortly before Grubb filed for bankruptcy. The team has now been together for approximately six years and has collectively acquired and managed $3.5 billion worth of healthcare properties on behalf of thousands of investors.

“The REIT’s board knew it needed to move away from Grubb to protect the interests of the REIT’s shareholders,” Jeff Hanson, principal of AHI, tells REAL ESTATE FORUM. “The decision was made at the right time because on the day it was done, Grubb was delisted by the New York Stock Exchange, and bankruptcy was declared six weeks later. It was clear that the REIT would have to make a transition.”

The three principals who formed AHI had a wealth of combined experience in order to make this transition successful. Hanson, who, in addition to being a founding principal of AHI, serves as chairman and CEO of Griffin-American Healthcare REIT II, had served in a dual-capacity role with Grubb & Ellis as chairman and CEO of Grubb & Ellis Healthcare REIT II, as well as one of five executive officers of Grubb & Ellis Co. and CEO of the firm’s investment-management subsidiary, Grubb & Ellis Equity Advisors, and with the REIT as its chairman and CEO. Hanson had led Grubb & Ellis’ national investment-management platform, composed of publicly registered non-traded REITs, separate accounts and institutional JVs, from 2006 to 2011. Over the course of his career, he’s overseen more than $11 billion in combined real estate transactions across 32 states, including nearly $3.5 billion of healthcare-related assets. Hanson has also been lauded as a rising leader, an executive to watch and a net lease executive of the year by real estate and investment publications…