Air Methods Corp. Flies to American Securities

Air Methods Corp. Flies to American Securities

Air Methods Corporation (NASDAQ: AIRM), a global air medical transportation company, has been on the acquisition trail since the late 1990s, announcing 12 deals targeting smaller air ambulance operators. Now it’s a takeover target itself, thanks to activist shareholder Voce Capital Management LLC. Voce Capital, and its managing director J. Daniel Plants, had been calling for Air Methods management to put the company on the block as far back as 2015. In February 2017, the investment firm launched a fight for four board seats and publicly criticized AIRM’s financial returns and “a multi-year syndrome of operational, strategic and governance failures.” Air Methods... Read More »

Hospital Transactions, 2012 to 2016

Hospital merger and acquisition activity softened in 2016, as more transactions came in the form of joint operating ventures, affiliations or partnerships rather than long-term financial commitments. These deals represent safer financial territory than an outright commitment to a struggling facility. M&A transactions among larger hospitals and health systems are shifting to a more strategic focus, to gain market share, cost efficiencies and greater negotiating power. Deals involving small, standalone hospitals, however, are still driven largely by financial pressures. Health systems are also acquiring more pre- and post-acute care facilities and services, as well as physician medical... Read More »
Strategic vs. Financial Healthcare Buyers in 2016

Strategic vs. Financial Healthcare Buyers in 2016

Every spring, we publish myraid statistics on the healthcare services deals announced the year before, in the form of The Health Care Services Acquisition Report. This year’s 23rd edition, which will available in late March, has this examination of what financial buyers targeted in 2016. Strategic buyers continued to dominate the health care services M&A market in 2016, as they have in the past. Their 683 deals made up 73% of the year’s deal volume. The $45.7 billion spent accounted for 63% of the combined total of $72 billion. A total of 259 deals, or 27% of the services deal volume in 2016, were carried out by financial buyers, such as private equity firms and real estate... Read More »

Hospitals Are Buying in to Home Health

One anticipated trend that did not come to fruition in 2016 was hospitals entering the home health & hospice space. The advent of bundled payments placed tremendous emphasis on providers to control the patient engagement from start to finish, making it almost imperative for health systems to secure post-acute care providers in the home health and rehabilitation sectors. In 2012 and 2013 combined, there were only two deals involving a hospital purchasing a home health & hospice company. In 2014 and 2015, there were just two deals each year, and in 2016 we saw three. However, in the first month of 2017, three hospital groups have purchased home health & hospice companies.... Read More »

Steward Health Buys 8 Community Health Hospitals

It’s no secret that Community Health Systems (NYSE: CYH) is selling off hospitals and medical office buildings to pay down its $15 billion debt. Its latest deal offloads eight hospitals with a total of 1,818 beds in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania to Steward Health Care LLC for an undisclosed price. The hospitals involved in this deal are Wuesthoff Health System-Melbourne (119 beds) in Melbourne, Wuesthoff Health System-Rockledge (298 beds) in Rockledge, and Sebastian River Medical Center (154 beds) all in Florida; ValleyCare Health System of Ohio, which consists of Northside Medical Center (355 beds) in Youngstown, and Trumbull Memorial Hospital (311 beds) and Hillside Rehabilitation... Read More »

REIT Deals for Hospitals Are Picking Up

Most acquisitions in the Hospital sector are made by another hospital or health system. In 2016, 59% of U.S. hospital acquirers were not-for-profit organizations, down from 65% in 2015 but still the majority. Lately, real estate investment trusts (REITs) have taken an interest in the hospital sector, where there seems to be no end to the supply of struggling standalone hospitals. Eight deals were announced by REITs in 2016, involving 19 hospitals, for a approximately $1.5 billion. Many of the target hospitals or systems were owned by private equity firms which wanted out. That was the case in September 2016, when Cerberus Capital Management sold off the real estate assets of its portfolio... Read More »