Sold, Closed, Resold: The Verity Health Saga

Sold, Closed, Resold: The Verity Health Saga

It’s hard enough to go through Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings once. Verity Health System, which has had a string of for-profit owners since it was sold by the Daughters of Charity Health System to BlueMountain Capital Management in 2016, is on its second round after a deal fell through last December. It’s just one of several distressed healthcare services stories, sad to say. The latest news came the week ending April 10, 2020, as a federal bankruptcy court judge approved the sale of St. Francis Medical Center (344 beds) in Lynnwood, California to Prime Healthcare Services for $262 million and the sale of St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles for $135 million. The buyer... Read More »

Kindred Exits Skilled Nursing Business

Kindred Healthcare (NYSE: KND) has made no secret that it is getting out of the skilled nursing business. It took until June 30 for the deal announcement to come, and when it did, it was a bit of a surprise that a single buyer was taking over the entire business. Private equity firm BlueMountain Capital Management, LLC, through a joint venture it is leading called BM Eagle Holdings, agreed to acquire Kindred’s 89 skilled nursing facilities. BlueMountain, you may recall, acquired the financially failing Daughters of Charity hospital system in California in July 2015, following the collapse of Prime Healthcare Services’ $849 million bid in March 2015. A week after this deal with Kindred... Read More »

Hospital Deals Rebound in May 2017

Hospital merger and acquisition activity was fairly quiet in the first four months of the year, totaling 24 deals that made to a definitive agreement or beyond. Then came May, with a combined total of 13 transactions announced in the first four weeks (through May 26). Deal volume in the hospital sector through May 26 now totals 37 transactions, targeting 79 hospitals with 13,854 beds. The nearly $2.3 billion combined spending includes the $1.4 billion just announced by Medical Properties Trust (NYSE: MPW), which acquired the real estate assets of 10 acute care hospitals and one behavioral health facility (approximately 2,400 beds) belonging to IASIS Healthcare, a TPG portfolio company.... Read More »

REIT-backed Hospital Deals Accelerate

Now that hospitals and health systems have realized most of the benefits they expected from the Affordable Care Act, the mergers and acquisitions in the hospital sector have been supplanted by partnerships, clinical collaborations, joint ventures, strategic alliances and affiliations. But there is one group of acquirers still on the prowl: real estate investment trusts (REITs). Their interest and investment in this sector has grown since 2014, when only three REIT-sponsored deals were announced.  Those deals targeted one hospital each, with a total of 94 beds. Combined spending was $1.27 billion. The action picked up in 2015, with six REIT-backed deals announced. The largest was made by... Read More »

Have the Daughters of Charity Made a Deal?

Don’t hold your breath, but the Daughters of Charity Health System (DCHS) in Los Altos, California may have found a buyer. Sure, the Board chose BlueMountain Capital Management LLC last July, in favor of its well-publicized $250 million offer to keep the struggling system afloat. And we do mean struggling. Through June 30, 2014, DCHS’s five acute-care hospitals made nearly $1.2 billion in total operating income, but a combined loss of $64.0 million in EBITDA. Don’t forget that for-profit hospital company Prime Healthcare Services walked away from its $849 million offer for Daughters back in March, accusing the state’s Attorney General, Kamala Harris, of imposing... Read More »