Peter Scott and the arithmetic of staying put

A tenant renews a lease. No ribbon is cut. Nobody needs an oversized pair of scissors. Yet the decision can spare a landlord months of vacancy and the cost of preparing space for somebody else. For Peter Scott, now running Healthcare Realty from Nashville, this modest transaction belongs in the same conversation as acquisitions, redevelopment and the balance sheet. The question is how much value the decision leaves behind.

Scott came to the chief executive’s job through finance: investment banking, then eight years as Healthpeak’s chief financial officer. His career includes large transactions and changes to entire portfolios. At Healthcare Realty, his agenda has brought the discussion down to individual buildings and leases. The arithmetic gets smaller. The responsibility gets wider.

The client knew him already

His professional chronology begins at Lehman Brothers in July 2002. He moved to Barclays in September 2008, then to Credit Suisse in September 2011. By May 2014 he was back at Barclays, this time as a managing director in its real estate banking group. Before those appointments came a Bachelor of Science from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

The sequence matters because Scott’s eventual move into corporate management grew out of an existing working relationship. At Barclays, he advised HCP on the $4 billion spin-off of Quality Care Properties, including $1.85 billion of debt financing. He knew the company from the adviser’s side of the table before becoming responsible for its finances.

In January 2017, HCP announced that Scott would become executive vice president and CFO the following month. Its new chief executive, Tom Herzog, had previously held that finance role. Herzog’s welcome included a plain explanation: “We know Pete well.” He also praised Scott’s work ethic, insights and analytical skills. The introduction had already happened through the work.

Moving inside a client changes the duration of responsibility. Advice has a delivery date; a finance function has another morning. Scott assumed the role on February 13, 2017, taking a position that would extend through the company’s next identity and several substantial changes to its business.

A merger has an afterlife

HCP adopted the Healthpeak name in late 2019. A photograph of its leadership team from that period places Scott at the far left, alongside Lisa Alonso, Scott Brinker, Tom Herzog, Thomas Klaritch and Troy McHenry. It is a useful picture of the setting in which his finance career developed: a management team changing the composition and presentation of a long-established property company.

The Physicians Realty Trust combination added another substantial assignment. Completed on March 1, 2024, the merger brought the businesses together under the Healthpeak name and the DOC stock ticker. Healthcare Realty would later credit Scott with an instrumental role in the $5 billion transaction.

The work continued after closing. During 2024, Healthpeak brought property management in-house across 14 markets covering more than 19 million square feet, adding over 100 property management employees. It reported approximately $50 million of merger-related savings that year, $10 million above the midpoint of its original forecast.

Those figures describe an organization’s work. They also explain something about the experience Scott carried into his next role. A merger’s economic case depends on integration: people, systems, property responsibilities and expenses. The announcement can fit on a page. Making the combined business operate takes rather more pages, and rather fewer ceremonial pens.

Nashville, April 2025

Healthcare Realty announced Scott’s appointment on April 7, 2025, with an April 15 start date. Connie Moore, who had been interim president and CEO since November 2024, would remain on the board. Scott joined the board himself on May 20.

His former chief executive, Scott Brinker, thanked him for eight years at Healthpeak and described a period spent repositioning its portfolio, balance sheet and platform. The exact interval is useful: February 2017 to April 2025. It was a substantial apprenticeship in managing the financial side of a public property business.

The Nashville appointment widened his remit. The finance executive was now responsible for an organization’s operating priorities as well as its capital decisions. Leasing, asset management, investment and governance would have to work toward the same set of objectives.

There is a familiar temptation in executive profiles to make each appointment look inevitable. Scott’s record supports a more concrete progression. He advised a property company, joined its finance leadership, worked through portfolio changes and a merger, then accepted the chief executive’s job at another listed landlord. Each move placed more of the outcome within his responsibility.

Five changes, one argument

In July 2025, Healthcare Realty published a three-year strategic plan. Its five parts covered governance, organizational restructuring, portfolio optimization, capital allocation and the balance sheet. The plan’s practical argument was that operating performance and financial choices needed to reinforce each other.

The proposed portfolio split made that argument visible. About 75% was classified as stabilized, 13% as lease-up opportunity and 12% for disposition. These were planning categories at that point in time. Each implied a different job: operate established assets, invest to improve others, and sell properties with limited upside.

The organizational changes included a new asset management platform. Tony Acevedo and Glenn Preston were hired to lead it, with responsibility intended to connect operations and leasing more closely at the property level. The plan also targeted annual savings of at least $10 million.

In his corporate responsibility letter, Scott described changes to the company’s stated values. Respect remained. Teamwork, financial discipline and a winning mentality joined it. Such words become useful when they influence who can make a decision, which figures receive attention and what a team is expected to deliver. His operating changes supplied a practical test of that language.

The tenant who stays

Scott’s comments on leasing make the finance background especially visible. On the first-quarter 2026 earnings call, he described a more financially rigorous approach to underwriting lease agreements. He cautioned against treating one quarter’s unusually high retention as a permanent expectation.

That qualification matters. A company can extend several large leases in a quarter and produce a striking number. An executive still has to distinguish the period’s events from a repeatable operating pattern. Scott suggested a future retention range of 80% to 85%, while explaining why the quarter’s result was unusually strong.

By the second-quarter call, he was emphasizing another part of renewal economics: a continuing tenant generally requires much less capital than a replacement. Higher retention can therefore affect both occupancy and the money needed to sustain it.

Read together, those comments show how he frames a leasing decision. Rent is one input. The cost of obtaining that rent belongs in the calculation too. For a landlord, keeping the lights on in an occupied suite can be a useful contribution to returns. The subject rarely gets a celebratory photograph.

“We are going to maintain discipline here.”

Peter Scott · second-quarter 2026 earnings call

The next dollar has to earn its place

Scott’s plan put capital back into existing properties while leaving room for share repurchases and, over time, external investment. That creates a recurring comparison. A dollar spent on redevelopment competes with a dollar used to buy shares, acquire an interest in another property or reduce debt.

The July 2025 presentation offered specific examples. Ready-to-occupy suites could make vacant space usable again. Larger redevelopment projects could reposition buildings whose locations supported further investment. The projected returns were underwriting targets, with the spending and execution still to come.

His second-quarter 2026 discussion of joint ventures added another choice. Scott said those investments offered attractive earnings economics at that time, and the company was prioritizing them accordingly. The implication is a changing ranking of opportunities: the preferred use of money depends on its expected return and the available funding.

This is where the former banker’s training meets the operator’s obligation. The calculations can recommend a project. People still have to finish it, lease it and manage it. A convincing spreadsheet has yet to persuade a vacant room to pay rent.

Results with dates attached

For 2025, Healthcare Realty reported 4.8% same-store cash net operating income growth and approximately 5.8 million square feet of new and renewal leases. Year-end net debt to adjusted EBITDA stood at 5.4 times, compared with 6.1 times a year earlier. These are company results, delivered across teams during a year that included Scott’s arrival.

The second quarter of 2026 brought 5.1% same-store cash net operating income growth and 88.5% tenant retention. The company raised its full-year normalized funds-from-operations guidance to $1.62-$1.66 per diluted share. It also reported a quarterly GAAP net loss of $0.13 per share. The operating measures and the accounting result answer different questions; both belong in the picture.

Scott’s next chapters will be measured in that mixture: operating progress, spending requirements, financing and reported earnings. His public career has already taken him from advising transactions to accepting responsibility for what follows them. At Healthcare Realty, the assignment now reaches all the way to the next renewal. A tenant stays. A room remains occupied. Somebody checks what it cost.