Sonas plans roll-out of retirement homes at €100m cost
Tom Lyons, Irish Independent, 27 April 2005
A private backed nursing home group called Sonas Healthcare Group plans to invest €100m in new nursing home centres over the next 10 years.The group plans to own up to 30 retirement centres, which will combine nursing homes on-site independent living units for the elderly. The move follows UK nursing home group Barchester Healthcare, which is backed by JP Magnus, Dermot Desmond and John Magnier, saying two weeks ago they were looking at growth opportunities in the Irish market.
Sonas which was formed four years ago, is backed by a combination of business people and health care professionals. It already has two nursing homes in Sligo and Roscommon under its control.
Sonas, which is chaired by former investment manager and stock broker Timothy Murphy, plans to expand both facilities.
It is developing a new euro8m centre in Athlone, and is in talks to build further greenfield sites.
"We have already identified fied key locations and are now in the process of site selection.
"Sonas centres are planned for Limerick, Ennis, Galway, Carlow and Wexford and the greater Leinster area over the next two years,"
Sonas chief executive Gerry Jordan said.
"There's gross deficiency in infrastructure and in the range of accommodation available to satisfy requirement for this sector of the population."
Mr Jordan said building independent accommodation units was key to its plans.
He said there was huge demand for such units which would provide on-site health care and security.
Mr Jordan added that releasing equity from ageing people's home would be one way of fianancing such units.
The Sonas business model he added was supported by a recent Goodbody report which predicted that the number of people over 65 will reach 767,300 by 2026 from a base of 436,000 in 2003.
