A duo of senior residing veterans has acquired an working firm and rebranded it as Higher Dwelling.
The brand new homeowners of the administration firm, Dani Merlino and Nick Merlino, acquired the corporate previously referred to as Higher Dwelling Administration Providers from brothers Seth and Kyle Phillip. Now that they personal the operator, the Merlinos plan to renovate its properties and additional enhance operations for a brand new era of residents.
Phrases of the acquisition weren’t disclosed.
Together with shopping for the operator, Dani Merlino will function CEO and Nick Merlino will function president.
Right now, the Higher Dwelling portfolio contains eight communities in Iowa, 5 properties in Minnesota and one in Wisconsin and averages roughly 40 items, with the smallest being 19 items and the most important group being 63 items. Nick Merlino described the corporate’s “candy spot” for communities as ranging between 40 and 50 items. The communities embrace a standalone impartial residing and reminiscence care property as the remainder of the communities supply assisted residing and reminiscence care.
“That’s to not say we received’t go larger, however we predict we will greatest optimize at that vary,” Nick Merlino stated. “We’re nice Midwest folks caring for nice Midwest folks and if we have to increase that, we’ll, however once more, our true focus is doing issues nicely.”
The acquisition of the administration firm additionally coincides with a renovation effort on the properties ranging between $500,000 and $1 million, Nick Merlino stated, to “add curb enchantment” and make the properties “essentially the most marketable.”
Within the firm’s first 90 days, the Merlinos will work with the operator’s leaders to seek out methods to enhance operations, together with figuring out potential income alternatives with the top objective of “empowering govt administrators” to make knowledgeable choices, drive profitability and enhance resident satisfaction, Nick Merlino stated.
Dani Merlino brings over 25 years of senior residing expertise together with her to her CEO position, beginning as a dietary aide and later as a licensed nursing assistant earlier than stints with Lutheran Life Communities, Petersen Well being Care, Provision Dwelling Senior Communities, 5 Star Senior Dwelling and Jaybird Senior Dwelling.
Nick Merlino began within the senior residing trade as an accountant for a boutique administration firm primarily based within the Midwest, earlier than becoming a member of Jaybird Senior Dwelling as an accountant and later working at Status Care, having most lately served as COO of Senior Housing Consultants.
The pair informed SHN their ardour for senior residing drove them to accumulate the Higher Dwelling administration platform, and prompted their effort to rebrand the corporate with a shortened identify, a brand new web site and emblem.
“However the rebrand goes additional than that,” Dani Merlino stated. “We need to have a concentrate on tradition and mission and it’s our mission to like. That’s what we do. We need to make folks’s lives higher, so the rebrand can be a few tradition change.”
As a part of the rebrand, Higher Dwelling is launching a branded reminiscence care program referred to as Higher Days primarily based on the psychological idea, Maslow’s hierarchy of wants, that motivating drives for folks could be organized into ranges from fundamental must self-actualization.
“We have to concentrate on meals and security and shelter and assembly these wants earlier than we will elevate programming,” Dani Merlino stated. “It’s our accountability and responsibility to assist them obtain that self-actualization on the prime of that pyramid.”
Senior Housing Consultants contracted Higher Dwelling final 12 months to function a few of the properties owned by the agency, with Nick Merlino enjoying an outsized position in “serving to them get off the bottom,” earlier than bringing in Dani Merlino, who has an impartial consulting enterprise centered on gross sales and advertising.
Throughout a latest convention, the Merlinos mentioned the concept of buying the administration firm from the previous homeowners—and the remainder is historical past, they stated.
“That is our ardour,” Dani Merlino stated. “That is what we care about and what we need to do, so by way of that dialog, it simply began making sense with our ambition to do that long-term.”
