A Birmingham company that is among the largest owners of hospital properties in the country is being accused of misleading investors by concealing that four hospitals it invested in were “distressed,” according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.
Medical Properties Trust announced its investment in four Pennsylvania hospitals in 2019 as part of a $1.55 billion investment in 14 hospitals.
From February 2019 until investors learned of the alleged fraud in February, the company “engaged in a widespread and multifaceted scheme to conceal from investors that, contrary to the company’s public representations, its portfolio of assets were severely distressed and non-performing such that they could not make their rent payments,” according to the suit filed last week by investor Fiyyaz Pirani in federal court in Birmingham. Pirani seeks to have
Besides the Birmingham company, three of its top executives -- Chairman, President and CEO Edward K. Aldag, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer R. Steven Hamner and Senior Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer J. Kevin Hanna -- were named in the lawsuit.
Medical Properties Trust buys hospital buildings, then leases them back to the hospital operators. It was co-founded in 2003 by Aldag and is one of the country’s largest real estate investment trusts, or REITs.
The executives “knew that the adverse facts ... had not been disclosed to and were being concealed from the public, and that the positive...
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