Manor Care

After dropping $2.625 Tuesday, shares of Manor Care Inc. recovered nearly half that loss yesterday as Wall Street partially forgave the Silver Spring-based company for its disappointing third-quarter results.The company's shares closed yesterday at $18.125, up $1.125, on the New York Stock Exchange.According to Margot Vignola, a Salomon Bros. analyst, Manor Care's stock "got nailed" Tuesday after the company's announcement that its net earnings for the period that ended Feb. 28 amounted to $5.3 million, or 14 cents a share.

Making money from new acquisitions and higher occupancy in its health-care facilities, Manor Care Inc. reported yesterday a 16.1 percent increase in fourth-quarter net income, capping a year in which profit grew by more than 20 percent.The Silver Spring-based health-care and lodging company said quarterly profits were $26.4 million, or 42 cents a share. Revenue for the fourth quarter rose 14.4 percent, from $309.7 million to $354.2 million.For the year that ended May 31, profit grew 20.6 percent, to $94.5 million, or $1.51 a share.

Manor Care Inc., the Silver Spring-based nursing home and hotel-motel company, said yesterday that its net income in its first quarter increased 31 percent due to stronger occupancy rates and rapid expansion of its Vitalink Pharmacy Services.Revenues for the quarter ended Aug. 31 were $321.4 million, up 12.9 percent from $284.6 million in the same quarter a year ago.Net income was $24.4 million, up from $18.6 million in the comparable period last year, before gains in the first quarter of 1993 on facility sales and the impact of changes in the tax rate.

Silver Spring-based Manor Care Inc. yesterday reported earnings jumped 23.5 percent in its second-quarter, thanks to higher occupancy in its nursing homes and growth in its hotel management business.Net income for the quarter ended Nov. 30 was $25 million, or 40 cents a share, up from $20.2 million, or 34 cents a share. Revenues posted a 13.9 percent gain, to $324.2 million, over $284.6 million in the year-ago period.The results reflected stronger nursing home occupancy rates -- now at nearly 90 percent -- higher per-patient, per-day income and expansion of specialty products such as designated nursing home wings for Alzheimer's disease patients, said Stewart Bainum Jr., chairman of the board.

Despite higher revenues, Manor Care Inc., the Silver Spring nursing home and hotel company, yesterday reported lower earnings for the quarter and fiscal year ended May 31 after one-time accounting charges.Without the one-time charges -- chiefly write-downs of hotel assets and health care information systems because of changes in accounting regulations -- earnings would have been up.Manor Care reported earnings separately for its health care division and its hotel division, Choice Hotels, which will be spun off as a separate company in September.

In an effort to bolster business in its nursing-home subsidiary, Silver Spring-based Manor Care Inc. is resorting to the tactic that pushed its Choice International hotel empire to the forefront of many consumers' minds: an aggressive marketing campaign.The advertising that Baltimore's Gray Kirk & Evans has designed for Manor Healthcare is not as upbeat as the popular "celebrity in a suitcase" spots the agency created for Manor's hotel chain in 1984, but the company is hoping the ads will be just as effective in attracting new customers.

Manor Care Inc. has taken control of In Home Health Inc., a major supplier of home health care services.The transaction announced yesterday gives Silver Spring-based Manor Care, which specializes in nursing home services, entry into the rapidly expanding home health industry.In Home Health, based in Minneapolis, does business in 13 states and has annual revenues of $130 million. It provides skilled nursing, rehabilitation, personal care and other services to patients in their own homes.Manor Care operates 193 facilities with 26,000 beds in 28 states.

Manor Care Inc., the Gaithersburg operator of nursing homes and other health facilities, posted earnings yesterday of $28.0 million, or 44 cents a share, for the third quarter of its fiscal year.That was 16.7 percent higher than the $24.0 million, or 38 cents a share, earned in the third quarter a year earlier before a one-time boost from sale of stock in a pharmacy subsidiary.Including the proceeds from the pharmacy deal, earnings for the year-earlier period were $61.4 million, or 97 cents a share.

Manor Care Inc. announced yesterday that it had completed the purchase of 11 retirement homes and skilled nursing facilities, making it the third-largest provider of assisted living in the country.The Silver Spring-based company said it paid competitor Beverly Enterprises Inc. $74.3 million for facilities in California, Illinois, Ohio and Florida.With the acquisition of the six new retirement centers and five nursing homes, Manor Care said it now owns a total of 193 facilities with 25,532 beds in 28 states.