CHARLOTTE-These days, most of the hungry healthcare real estate investors are scouring the country for acquisition opportunities.

However, two local HRE executives plan on keeping their acquisitions a bit closer to home. The executives, Benjamin E. Bivens of Bivens Investment Group LLC and William S. “Bill” Transou of WST Realty Corp., recently formed a new Charlotte-based joint venture firm with a name reflecting its regional scope, MedSouth Healthcare Properties LLC.

In acquiring properties, MedSouth is looking to provide “sale-leaseback solutions for doctor groups and hospital systems.” It will also work with “private investors, developers and real estate firms that are interested in selling their income-producing healthcare real estate.”

Bevins and Transou got to know each other while working at Flagship Capital Partners in Charlotte, a real estate investment firm with medical holdings. Soon thereafter, they formed separate real estate firms and often found themselves looking at and competing for the same deals.

“We developed a real connection in sharing goals and objectives within our business approach,” Transou says. “I'd hired Ben to come work for me at my former firm and over the next few years we produced several deals together. As time went by, we individually realized that what we wanted to accomplish in our professional careers (had) numerous similarities, and that we complemented each other's talents.”

Bivens adds: “And we felt that our collective and sometimes mutual contacts within the industry, along with our experience, would complement one another in that effort.”

In the medical office building space, the venture is looking to acquire either on or off-campus, multi- or single-tenant facilities, wellness centers, cancer treatment centers, emergency care centers and others. It is also interested in diagnostic imaging centers, dialysis centers, multi-specialty and single specialty surgery centers, single practice MOBs, urgent care centers, and others.

Bivens says the goal is to build “a legacy company that will be based upon acquiring well-located income producing healthcare properties here in the Southeast.”

So far, the new venture has been busy, with what Transou calls a “robust pipeline of opportunities in various stages of acquisition.” He added that the first transaction should close in soon and that “we expect to acquire several others over the next few months. As long as the economy continues to recover, the deal opportunity flow will be out there, and we intend to be one of the key players in the medical acquisitions arena.”

When it comes to healthcare providers potentially selling their real estate, Bivens notes that “our initiative adds tremendous value to these organizations by allowing them a solution to unlock their otherwise frozen equity in real estate. But it definitely has to be a need for the healthcare provider and make sense, as it is not an end-all solution for every organization.”

In addition to acquisitions, MedSouth is willing and able to partner financially with “preferred developers and medical users” on new healthcare projects. The firm is interested in build-to-suit projects as well as pre-leased multi- and single-tenant projects.

John B. Mugford is the Editor of Healthcare Real Estate Insights™, the nation's first and only publication totally dedicated to covering news and trends in healthcare real estate development, financing and investment. For more information, please visit www.HREInsights.com.