We are the UK's most active advisor to the care sector, and handle more than 50% of individually transacted care homes in the UK.

Demand for care businesses in the UK is underpinned by an ageing population, with the number of people over 85 years old projected to increase from c. 1.4 million in 2010 to 4.4 million by 2046.

With ongoing advances in medical treatment, people are also living longer and with increasingly complex health conditions. Given the pressure on the NHS, the private sector (including not for profit organisations) is now responsible for the delivery of a significant proportion of the care needed to look after the elderly population as well as people of all ages with long term health conditions. 

The spectrum of care provided by the private sector is therefore vast ranging from child care to care for younger adults, people with disabilities or complex health conditions and the elderly. Over many years private sector providers have developed a wide range of services to provide a complete care pathway, with investors being attracted to back these organisations by the needs driven nature of the industry.

The care sector is therefore very dynamic and ever evolving as operators seek to provide products and services to meet commissioner requirements. It is also relatively unique in terms of the number of third party stakeholders who are also involved with these including registration authorities, health commissioners, local government, central government, professional bodies and other similar organisations.
 
Our client base in the care sector is very diverse ranging from the largest institutional investors, national operators, private equity investors, hedge funds and other financial institutions to regional and local providers. We work with providers or investment companies with very large estates to operators who provide 'asset light' services such as domiciliary care and supported living. The range of organisations we act for is very representative of the market itself, with many of the largest operators being formed through an amalgamation of much smaller businesses which have steadily grown over the years.

Market activity over the past two years has been very strong and fuelled by the arrival of new and very well funded sources of capital in the form of US REITS, hedge funds, special opportunity funds and other international investors. We have also seen the return of UK Institutional investors and significant activity from the private equity community. This positive wave of new liquidity has filtered down to the regional market with the main UK banks also actively lending again and supporting operators with proven track records to develop and expand their businesses.

Funding, care quality and a shortage of nurses are some of the key challenges which the sector currently faces. Christie & Co has been at the forefront of the debate on the nursing shortage with our 2015 research document 'The UK Nursing Workforce, Crisis or Opportunity' being widely acclaimed. 

In July 2016, we published a new market leading piece of research on ‘Funding, Staffing & the Bottom Line’. This document was produced in response to the introduction of the new National Living Wage from 1st April 2016 and a number of other key issues including local authority fee rate increases following the new social care precept, revised immigration rules and other policy changes including amends to nurse bursaries.  The research undertaken for this document included a survey of 200 care home operators and every local authority. We also have a selection of videos broken down into chapters. Each provides an engaging discussion between our distinguished panel featuring Imogen Ebbs from Legal & General, Peter Hill of Caring Homes Group, Tony Stein of Healthcare Management Solutions and the Christie & Co team. Watch the event video's here. 

The demand for expert advice backed up by comprehensive data and deep industry knowledge has never been greater. Through our regional office network, Christie & Co is responsible for the sale of over 50% of all the individually transacted care businesses in the UK with our team inspecting on average around 60 care businesses every week for brokerage or advisory purposes. The depth of data and market knowledge which we have is market leading and higly sought after, and we advise on some of the highest profile projects both in the corporate and regional market.