Contrarian Boston/02.28.2024
Classroom strike talk by Newton teachers angers parents | Stories you saw first in Contrarian Boston | Shocker: Public radio takes on deadbeat tenants | Behind Steward hospital mess, yet another greedy, jet-loving CEO | Quick hits |
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Sweet home Alabama: CEO of ‘Bama-based landlord for struggling Mass. hospital chain rakes in the millions as he travels in style and builds a glittering new headquarters
Barrels of digital ink have been spilled on stories about Steward Health Care’s piggish CEO, Ralph de la Torre, he of the $40 million yacht and bevy of corporate jets to tool around in.
Amazingly, the Steward CEO’s wingman, the head of Medical Properties Trust, has managed to fly around under the radar when it comes to the Boston media.
Edward Aldag, Jr., Medical Properties Trust’s $17 million a year CEO, has been a key player in the risky financial deals that has left Steward’s Massachusetts hospitals on life support, struggling under massive rent payments and debt.
MPT bought Steward’s nine Massachusetts hospitals for $1.25 billion in 2016 under a sale-leaseback agreement. The dumbfounding deal transformed Steward from owner to tenant in its own hospitals, which, ranging from the Carney in Dorchester to Holy Family in Haverhill to Norwood Hospital in the suburbs, all serve low-income and working class patients.
Steward then used the money to pay off an early investor in the for-profit health care chain while going on a global acquisition spree, snapping up hospitals from Texas to Malta.
But the expansion drive has backfired, with Steward now struggling to pay its Alabama landlord tens of millions in rent on the Massachusetts hospitals it once owned, forcing MPT, in turn, to extend credit in order to help the hospital company pay its bills.
Meanwhile, Aldag and other top MPT executives are globetrotting in corporate jets, while the real estate firm builds shiny new corporate digs in Alabama.
MPT had three Gulfstream corporate jets stationed at Birmingham’s airport, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2022. Flight records examined by the Journal noted 141 trips over a three year period between Birmingham and Fairhope, a town on Mobile Bay where Aldag, MPT’s CEO, president, and chairman, owned a waterfront home.
That’s a lot of jets for a company with just 200 people.
Contrarian Boston recently took a deep dive into FAA records to examine the current state of MPT’s corporate air fleet and came across two jets in which the company shares fractional ownership and a third it leases from a trust companies use to obscure ownership.
It’s possible, then, that MPT has decided to go on a corporate jet diet; then again, maybe it’s just getting better at hiding things after being embarrassed by the WSJ.
But as they say, that's not all, for MPT is in the midst of building a sprawling, $150 million, state of the art, “green” headquarters for itself outside Birmingham.
Meanwhile, back in Massachusetts, work on rebuilding Norwood Hospital, which MPT owns and now leases out to Steward, has ground to a complete halt.
The hospital closed its doors after a devastating flood in 2020, leaving a huge hole in health care coverage for nearly a dozen towns in suburban Boston.
MPT has taken pains to note in its financial reports that it is currently not charging Steward rent on Norwood Hospital, which, at this point, is only a half-built steel structure.
What a swell company.
You saw it here first: Contrarian Boston scoops the competition
On Monday, the Globe ran a fine story on big jump in tax appeals by property owners in downtown Boston, where office towers have been hammered by the shift to remote work.
But it was even better when Contrarian Boston ran the story last Friday night, reporting a 27 percent jump in tax abatement applications in downtown Boston.
Additionally, last week the Globe reported that construction had ground to a halt on the reconstruction of Norwood Hospital, which shut its doors in 2020 after a devasting flood.
In confirming that work had stopped, the paper cited elected officials, like U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, who had visited the site.
However, Contrarian Boston confirmed that work had stopped in its story more than a week earlier on Feb. 12, speaking to the town administrator, and photographing the empty construction site.
Unhappy campers: Some parents less than thrilled as the teachers union urges strike talk in Newton classrooms
There have been three separate cases where Newton teachers have triggered complaints from parents to the district, having discussed the recently ended strike with their students.
That’s the word from Anna Nolin, Newton’s superintendent, in the wake of a push by the Massachusetts Teachers Association to get members to talk up the bitter, illegal, and recently ended two-week strike with their students as some sort of major victory for labor rights.
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