June 2017 Deal Volume Shows Continued Strength

June 2017 Deal Volume Shows Continued Strength

Preliminary data for the month of June shows that investors are still bullish—or at least comfortable—betting on health care. Some 123 transactions were announced last month, an 11% decrease compared with May’s 138 transactions. Year over year, however, this early data is just 5% below the 130 deals announced in June 2016. For a little perspective, April 2017’s deal volume was just 104 transactions, which made the May numbers look very strong by comparison. June’s deal volume looks reassuringly healthy, as it is close to the year-ago total, and could be adjusted upward in the future as more deals come to light. The same trends we’ve noted in previous months are still playing out, too. Deal... 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 »
June 2017 Deal Volume Shows Continued Strength

Investors Want Health Care Services with No Strings Attached

Preliminary data for the month of May shows an encouraging uptick in deal volume, with the services sectors making up 66% of the total. Some 134 transactions were announced last month, a 30% increase over April’s anemic 103 deal volume total. But monthly transaction totals in 2017 are not keeping pace with those in 2016. A year ago, 151 transactions were announced, 11% higher than in May 2017. There’s no question that the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the American Health Care Act hangs heavily on healthcare investors. The Senate Republicans have been at work behind closed doors to craft a different deal than the one sent to them by the House Republicans in mid-May. From the handful of... Read More »

Health Care Deals Slide in April 2017

April usually doesn’t feel like February, at least, weather-wise. As far as healthcare mergers and acquisitions go, however, deal volume in April 2017 (103 deals) feels a lot like February’s deal volume (102). The chart below shows the clear winners and losers in April 2017. Deal volume was down 29% compared with the previous month (March, 145 deals), and slid 12% compared with the year before (April 2016, 141 deals). Healthcare services deal volume accounted for just 50% of April’s preliminary total. The services sectors typically account for higher percentages than the technology sectors (although that trend is reversed when it comes to dollar volume). The services side... 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 »

Good-Bye, ACA. Now What?

And so it begins. A new year, a new administration, and a foreboding that things can and will go wildly out of control in the healthcare industry, as the new administration dismantles the Affordable Care Act and doesn’t bother to replace it. Judging from the market’s behavior since the November 8 election, the notion that a Hillary Clinton victory was “baked in” to every healthcare deal doesn’t hold. Certainly some deals may have been put on hold following Donald Trump’s election, but 2016 ended with 1,536 deals, in our preliminary count. That’s 1% higher than 2015, which was the first year to break 1,500 transactions. Spending on deals in 2016, while not in record territory, was healthy.... Read More »