Sunrise Senior Living, a 45-year-old operator of more than 230 private-pay senior communities, is changing hands. The McLean, Va., company said on Oct. 6, 2026 that funds affiliated with BDT & MSD Partners have signed a definitive agreement to buy it from Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board, with Sunrise’s own executives taking the minority side of the new ownership.
Neither the purchase price nor the size of the management stake was disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in 2027, subject to customary regulatory approvals.
What BDT & MSD is buying is one of the larger private-pay platforms in the sector: more than 230 communities across the United States and Canada serving more than 22,000 residents, plus a third-party management business, a joint venture investment arm, and a development pipeline of more than 50 communities with an expected development cost of roughly $7.5 billion. Sunrise offers independent living, assisted living and memory care, and describes itself as a luxury and premium operator.
That pipeline figure is the number to sit with. On our reading it is the clearest signal of what a merchant bank is buying here: not a stabilized portfolio so much as an operating and development machine. Sunrise framed the timing the same way, saying the partnership comes as “generational demographic shifts are driving growing demand for high-quality senior living.”
A hospitality investor crossing into care
BDT & MSD Partners was formed in 2023 from the combination of BDT & Company and MSD Partners and says it has invested or manages approximately $20 billion of real estate. Its real estate résumé is heavily operational and heavily hospitality: the firm cites investments in Greystar, the apartment manager, and in Speed Bay Warehouse Solutions, the shallow-bay industrial platform it seeded with a $250 million commitment, along with ownership of Four Seasons Hualalai, The Boca Raton and Four Seasons Jackson Hole, and development of the Naples Beach Club and the soon-to-open Knox Street in Dallas.
Senior housing sits at the junction of those skills, a point the buyer made explicitly. “Sunrise is a category-leading business with an exceptional leadership team, trusted brand, and proven operating platform,” said Coburn Packard, head of real estate equity at BDT & MSD Partners. “We have a longstanding relationship with Jack and his team and tremendous respect for the culture and organization they have built. The need for high-quality senior living is growing, and we believe Sunrise has the leadership, reputation, and platform to meet it.”
The “Jack” is Jack R. Callison, Jr., Sunrise’s chief executive, who leads the management group investing alongside the new owner. “We thank PSP Investments for its support during a period of strong growth and evolution for Sunrise,” Callison said, adding that BDT & MSD’s “long-term approach and deep experience across hospitality, development, and real estate operations will complement our team’s expertise and help accelerate Sunrise’s next phase of growth.” Sunrise said its senior leaders will remain in place and continue running the communities, “investing significant personal capital” alongside the majority investment.
A pension fund taking its win
For PSP Investments, this is an exit on a position it has held for more than a decade. The pension manager first invested in Sunrise in 2014 and became its sole owner in 2023. It reports $320.6 billion in net assets under management as of March 31, 2026, and is an active U.S. real estate investor — it was a partner on the $660 million refinancing of One Boston Wharf in Boston.
Simon Marc, PSP’s senior vice president and global head of private equity and real estate investments, framed the sale as a deliberate recycling of capital. The deal, he said, “reflects our portfolio rotation strategy, recycling capital from a successfully executed investment into new opportunities,” and is “a clear example of our approach to real estate investing: executing a disciplined business plan, backing an exceptional management team, positioning the Company for continued success and crystallizing the value we’ve built.”
J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Jones Lang LaSalle Securities, LLC are advising PSP Investments.
The sale lands in a stretch of unusually heavy senior housing dealmaking. REITs have been buying operators and portfolios aggressively this year, including American Healthcare REIT’s $873 million agreement for eight Kensington Senior Living communities. What distinguishes the Sunrise transaction is that the asset is the company itself — brand, management contracts and development pipeline — rather than a set of buildings, and that the buyer is a merchant bank rather than a landlord.
Founded in 1981, Sunrise says it is credited with establishing the modern era of senior living. Whether a hospitality-minded owner changes how that 45-year-old platform operates is the question the next year will answer; for now, the company says the operating team and its approach stay as they are. Further commercial real estate coverage is on our commercial page.
