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 »

Community Health Sells 4 Rural Hospitals

Financially troubled Community Health Systems (NYSE: CYH) announced the sale of four rural hospitals on September 28, as it tries to pare down its $15 billion in debt. And more announcements are in the works. Curae Health, Inc., a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting rural healthcare services, agreed to take on the four facilities, three of which are in Mississippi and one in Florida.  They are Merit Health Gilmore Memorial (95 beds), Merit Health Batesville (112 beds), Merit Health Northwest Mississippi (181 beds) and Highlands Regional Medical Center (126 beds). In November 2014, Curae Health emerged as the owner of three rural Alabama hospitals being sold by LifePoint... Read More »

Hospital Deals Lag 2015’s Total

Hospital transactions have trickled in during the first three quarters of 2016. To date, 68 mergers or acquisitions have been announced (64 of them for U.S. hospital or health systems), although there have been many more partnerships, strategic alliances and joint ventures in the same period. For our database, those deals don’t count. Last year at this time, 79 deals were recorded, and 2015 ended with a total of 102 transactions (96 of them U.S.-based targets). Given the slowing pace of M&A activity we’ve witnessed since the second quarter, we don’t expect a sudden burst of transactions in the fourth quarter that would reach last year’s level. Spending on the... Read More »

Fresensius Helios Adds 43 Spanish Hospitals

Fresenius Helios (EXTRA: FRE.DE) was already the largest private hospital company in Europe, and now it’s grown even larger. On September 5, 2016, the company announced the acquisition of Quirónsalud, Spain’s largest private hospital operator, with 43 hospitals, 39 outpatient centers, and 300 occupational risk prevention centers.  Quirónsalud was created by the 2014 merger of IDC Salud and Grupo Hospitalario Quirón. Fresenius Helios, a division of Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA, vaulted to the top of the private European hospital market in September 2013, following the  its acquisition of 43 hospitals and 15 outpatient facilities in Germany, sold by Rhön Klinikum AG, for... Read More »

Jefferson Health Adds Another Health System

Jefferson Health System, the not-for-profit system that is part of Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, signed a definitive agreement to integrate with Kennedy Health, a three-hospital system (607 beds) in southern New Jersey. The transaction is expected to be completed following New Jersey’s Community Health Care Assets Protection Act review process. The boards of Kennedy and Jefferson unanimously approved the agreement, which extends the shared governance model that was established with the integration of Abington Health (January 2015) and Aria Health (July 2016). Like Jefferson, Abington and Aria, Kennedy will have equal representation on the expanded Jefferson board. With the... Read More »

June 2016 M&A Results Show Strength

Uncertainty is the hobgoblin of the merger and acquisition markets, and the month of June was a high point (or low point, depending on your perspective) for anxiety in global financial markets. Still, the healthcare deals kept rolling in. Our preliminary total for June 2016 stands at 115 transactions, exactly equal with the same month a year ago. Compared with May’s total of 141 deals, though, June’s total does look as if someone is applying the brakes. It takes 12 months to make a year, though, and one month’s results do not create a trend. The digital health sector turned in the strongest gain compared with June 2015, when only two deals were announced. This June, 22 deals were announced... Read More »