In an attempt to branch out, more personal home care agencies are looking to acquire companies in other sectors.
Those additions, the companies believe, will allow them to unlock opportunities and stand out among their peers.
A prime example is Best of Care Inc., which purchased Moving Mentor Inc. – a move management, organizing and consulting company – at the start of the year.
“What they do is help families or individuals who are either ready to move, thinking about moving, strategizing a move, downsizing, right-sizing, reorganizing, decluttering, or just sort of reimagining their space,” Best of Care CEO Kevin Smith told Home Health Care News. “They help to consult with families and prepare every angle of the move, including the emotional angle, because for those of us who have either moved, or helped move a parent, or dealt with the passing of a loved one, we know how overwhelming that process can be.”
Best of Care is a Quincy, Massachusetts-based personal home care agency. The company has over 400 home care aides, administrative staff, care managers, nurses and move managers. The company also has a care management division, TUCKed In Eldercare.
When it came to Moving Mentor, Smith said he immediately had a “light bulb moment.” He identified the overlap between what the company does and home care.
“Moving Mentor is in people’s homes for significant periods of time, and working with clients and families who are in either a moment of crisis or a vulnerable position,” he said. “That’s usually the same starting point of entry for home care. There’s been some kind of key event or change in a person’s condition, or status that warrants some sort of an intervention. In the same way that Moving Mentor gets involved in people’s homes and their lives, so does Best of Care.”
Along with the commonalities, the acquisition now positions the two companies to feed into each other.
In other words, a moving mentor manager who enters a client’s home might recognize their need for home care services as well. On the other end, a Best of Care staff member can do the same with move management services.
Overall, the acquisition is a move to become a broader aging-in-place and care services provider.
“It just fits this holistic approach that Best of Care has been trying to build for a number of years now,” Smith said. “With move management expertise under our roof, there’s no shortage of service that we can provide to a person or a family member.”
Smith sees Moving Mentor differentiating Best of Care from its home care peers.
“Perhaps it does give us sort of a different footing than some of our peers, insofar as we are one phone call away, or one email inquiry away, from helping you with any number of things that you might not have even known that you needed help with yet,” he said.
Looking ahead, Smith predicts that more home care leaders will gravitate towards unconventional acquisitions.
“It all goes back to the ongoing workforce issues,” he said. “In my opinion, home care agencies are wise to look at different ways to diversify their revenue streams and service offerings.”
Executive Care’s divergent path
Executive Home Care Holdings LLC recently bought Grasons Co., an estate sales and business liquidation service.
The Hackensack, New Jersey-based Executive Home Care is a personal care and companion care company. Currently, the company has 20 franchise locations across the country, predominantly on the east coast.
The acquisition was part of the creation of Evive Brands LLC, a multi-branded service organization that brings together franchise systems – including Executive Home Care and Assisted Living Locators – under one umbrella.
“With Evive Brands, we get a very similar customer and demographic,” Executive Home Care CEO Tim Hadley told HHCN. “You have complementary services across the different brands, so as we look to add additional brands under the umbrella, and be able to provide different benefits and services to our existing customers, we’re looking for things that complement one another.”
While Grasons will continue to operate independently, the move is another example of a home care agency thinking outside the box.
Hadley believes that placing these companies under one umbrella creates a sort of one-stop-shop for multiple services.
“I think it definitely creates a trusted relationship that can become seamless — from, we’re providing care in the home to now you go to one of the other brands,” he said. “We help you find the appropriate assisted living center for your loved one, and then at the same time, we also help you downsize the estate or liquidate the estate. This becomes a lifelong client for us.”
It’s been six months since Executive Home Care acquired Assisted Living Locators, another purchase that falls outside of traditional home care. The company helps seniors find the right senior care placement, including in assisted living facilities.
“Assisted Living Locators has been doing tremendous,” Hadley said. “We’ve been working with them on really creating a more robust infrastructure to help support their franchisees.”
Ultimately, Hadley sees a lot of growth opportunities for Grasons too.
“Grasons does estate sales and business liquidations – that’s something that can be done anywhere in the country,” he said. “There’s a tremendous amount of opportunity for the franchisees to get their territory, and have quite a bit of open space to be able to service the needs of people.”
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