The home health & hospice sector is still buzzing with mergers and acquisitions. Just two weeks into the month of March, six transactions have been announced. The largest target by price (and the only one disclosed to date) is Comapssus‘ $84 million purchase of the home health and hospice operations of Genesis Healthcare (NYSE: GEN), which are located in California, Idaho, Montana and New Mexico. Compassus already operates more than 150 community-based hospice and palliative care programs in 28 states. After the close, it will operate more than 165 programs in 30 states. Genesis announced the sale after concluding the home health and hospice businesses were non-strategic assets.
Another large transaction, even without a disclosed price, is the sale of Heartlite Hospice, a subsidiary of Hospice of America, Inc., based in Scottsboro, Alabama. The buyer is LHC Group (NASDAQ: LHCG) for an undisclosed price. Heartlite’s licensed hospice service area covers eight counties in Alabama and 29 counties in Georgia, including 19 counties in which LHC is licensed for home health. Combined, the companies will cover an estimated licensed service area of 5.7 million people, with 652,000 who are older than 65. LHC estimates that the annualized revenue from the transaction will be $6.8 million.
Another publicly traded acquirer, Natus Medical Inc. (NASDAQ: BABY), expanded its neurodiagnostic services into seven new states with the purchase of Muskego, Wisconsin-based NeuroQuest, LLC, a provider of in-home neurodiagnostic services such as ambulatory video EEGs. The company will become part of Natus’ Global Neurodiagnostic brand and is expected to add approximately $2.5 million in additional revenue in 2016.
The remaining three deals involved privately held acquirers and targets.
