Who Owns Sunrise Senior Living?

Paul and Terry Klaassen founded Sunrise in 1981, opening their first community in Oakton, Virginia. The couple had spent time in the Netherlands and were influenced by the European model of residential senior care that emphasized homelike environments over institutional nursing facilities, a concept then largely absent in the United States.

The first Sunrise community introduced the model that became the brand's signature: large Victorian-style residential properties combining assisted living, personalized care, and hospitality rather than medical settings. The approach created the luxury assisted living category in America, and Sunrise expanded through the 1980s and 1990s across the East Coast and then nationally.

Sunrise went public in 1996 under the name Sunrise Assisted Living, trading on the New York Stock Exchange as SRZ. Public markets funded rapid expansion through the late 1990s and 2000s as the company built, acquired, and managed communities and entered the UK and Canadian markets.

The 2008 financial crisis hit the company hard. Highly leveraged and with heavy development commitments, Sunrise's stock collapsed, and the company underwent a painful restructuring that included asset sales and leadership changes. Paul Klaassen stepped down, and the company narrowed its focus to operating rather than owning communities.

In 2013, Sunrise was taken private in a transaction involving Welltower and Revera, which formed a joint venture owning the operating company with Revera holding 66 percent and Welltower 34 percent. The sale ended Sunrise's 17-year run as a public company and shifted it to a management-focused model.

Under the joint venture and then full Revera ownership from 2023, Sunrise rebuilt around luxury private-pay positioning, growing through third-party management contracts. CEO Jack Callison led a growth phase adding communities through partnerships with developers including Griffin Living, reaching about 240 communities by 2025. In October 2026, PSP agreed to sell a majority stake to BDT & MSD Partners, setting up the next ownership transition expected to close in 2027.