Ventas Buys Hospitals and Spins off SNFs

by | Apr 13, 2015 3:54 pm | Hospitals | 0 comments

Ventas, Inc. (NYSE: VTR) had a busy week, as it paid $1.75 billion for Ardent Health Services, one of the 10 largest for-profit hospitals companies in the United States, from Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. The plan is to separate Ardent’s hospital operations from its owned real estate and sell the operations to one or more newly formed entities owned by Ardent’s current management. The same day, VTR announced plans to spin off most of its post-acute and skilled nursing facility portfolio into an independently traded REIT called SpinCo, which will own 355 high-quality, triple-net leased SNFs and other healthcare assets operated by 44 private regional and local care... Read More »

Biotech Blow-Out in 2015

by | Apr 13, 2015 3:45 pm | Biotechnology | 0 comments

Mergers and acquisitions in the biotechnology sector are soaring, and we’ve got the data to prove it. We checked our M&A database, DealSearchOnline, to find the average price per biotechnology deal for each of the past five years. In that span, 2013 posted the highest average, nearly $629 million. We ran the same test for 2015, through April 10, and voila – of the 63 deals we’ve captured so far, 40 of them had prices. This year’s average price per biotech transaction is already $879 million—the highest since we began following this sector in 2000. Read More »

Hospital Mergers Heat Up in April

by | Apr 13, 2015 3:43 pm | Hospitals | 0 comments

Last week brought word that Boston Medical Center and Tufts Medical Center were moving ahead with merger talks and expect to have a deal by the end of this year. The parties announced they were exploring a merger last December. That news came two days after Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and House Majority Leader Ron Mariano announced legislation that would give more power to the state’s Health Policy Commission in its reviews of hospital mergers and acquisitions. No such headaches exist in New Jersey, where Meridian Health Systems, which operates six hospitals, merged with financially troubled Raritan Bay Health Services Corp., a two-hospital system. Meridian is still in... Read More »

Optum Buys MedExpress

by | Apr 13, 2015 3:37 pm | Pharmaceuticals | 0 comments

UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) is still in acquisition mode. Two weeks ago its OptumRx subsidiary announced a $1.0 billion deal for pharmacy benefits manager Catamaran Corp. (NASDAQ: CTRX). Last week, another subsidiary, Optum, reached a deal for MedExpress, a privately held chain of full-service neighborhood medical centers in 11 states. Financial terms were not disclosed, but MedExpress plans to open another 25 to 30 centers in 2015. Optum plans to integrate its care management and clinical programs with MedExpress’ services. Read More »