Aspirus Buys Portfolio of Ascension Hospitals
Ascension Wisconsin, part of the Ascension health system, is divesting seven hospitals (total of 264 beds) in north and central Wisconsin. Three are acute care hospitals, and four are designated as critical access hospitals. The buyer is Aspirus, a nonprofit rural health service with six hospitals in Wisconsin and four in Michigan, 50 clinics, home health and hospice care, pharmacies, critical care and air-medical transport, nursing homes and a broad network of physicians. No terms were disclosed, but the seven facilities generated $392.2 million revenues for the fiscal year of 2019 and $73.8 million in EBITDA. The divestment includes Eagle River Hospital in Eagle River (14 beds); Good... Read More »
What a Year It Was for Hospital M&A
The U.S. hospital system has had a stress-filled year, to say the least. By mid-December 2020, the nation’s death toll from the coronavirus topped 300,000 and daily hospitalizations closed in on 11,000. Front-line healthcare workers began receiving the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told MSNBC in an interview that the timeline for a return to normalcy stretched well into 2021. Not surprisingly, the hospital merger and acquisition landscape shifted, but it didn’t buckle. Overall, deals for hospitals are down 26% through mid-December (73 vs. 99 in 2019). For U.S. hospitals, deal volume dropped 16% (66 U.S. deals... Read More »
Tenet Healthcare Acquires 45 ASCs For More Than $1 Billion
Tenet Healthcare Corporation (NYSE: THC) has significantly expanded its ambulatory surgery platform with a new acquisition. The Texas-based health system has purchased a portfolio of 45 ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) located in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, New Hampshire, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin from SurgCenter Development (SCD), which partners with local surgeons to create physician-owned and physician-operated ASCs. Tenet Healthcare will buy the majority interests by fully acquiring SCD’s interests, and partially acquiring interests from physician partners, for $1.1 billion in cash and the assumption of approximately $18 million of center-level debt. The ASCs will... Read More »
U.S. Hospital M&A Is Still Healthy
Hospitals are the subject of intense national attention this year, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. When Covid-19 hit hard in March, several hospitals and health systems were overwhelmed with critically ill patients. Elective surgeries were canceled, emergency room and hospital visits plummetted and revenue streams dried up. Congress quickly passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which sent $100 billion to healthcare providers in the form of loans and grants. Mergers and acquisitions already underway at the beginning of the year kept moving forward, mostly. The first quarter of 2020 saw 19 transactions reach the definitive agreement stage, the same number reported... Read More »
Banner Health Goes On an Acquisition Spree
Banner Health, the Phoenix, Arizona-based not-for-profit health system, is bucking a trend. Thanks to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States, some healthcare analysts expect 2020 will be a “throw-away year” for earnings and M&A activity. Not so for Banner Health, which owns and operates 28 acute-care hospitals in six states, as well as Banner Health Network, Banner University Medicine, academic and employed physician groups, long-term care centers, outpatient surgery centers and an array of other services. It reported revenue of $2.37 billion in the first quarter of 2020, up from $2.33 billion in the same period in 2019. In August 2019, the system acquired... Read More »