Geriatric Behavioral Health Companies Merge

MedOptions, Inc. of Old Lyme, Connecticut announced its acquisition of San Diego-based Vericare on May 2, 2016. Vericare provides geropsychology and geropsychiatry behavioral health services in skilled nursing facilities. It employs more than 400 licensed behavioral healthcare professionals in more than 600 facilities across eight states. Similarly, MedOptions provides behavioral health services to residents of skilled nursing homes in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The two companies each provide a similar integrated behavioral care model to deliver services to a primarily geriatric population. The combined business will be the sole national provider of... Read More »

Veritas Capital Buys Back into Big Data

Big data firms are sweet targets for healthcare investors. Just last February, Veritas Capital sold Truven Health Analytics to IBM Watson Health (NYSE: IBM) for $2.6 billion. Now it’s putting some of that ROI into another big data firm, Verisk Health, the healthcare service business Verisk Analytics Inc. Verisk Health provides data services, analytics and advanced technologies to help users make smarter business decisions and reduce risk. The $820 million purchase price consists of $720 million in cash and a $100 million long-term subordinated promissory note. With Truven Health Analytics, Veritas Capital repositioned the company from a data provider with limited analytics offerings... Read More »

Another Anesthesia Group Changes Hands

Moelis Capital Partners is selling North American Partners in Anesthesia (NAPA), the largest single specialty anethesia management company in the United States, which it acquired in 2011. The buyers are American Securities LLC, a middle-market private equity firm, along with minority investments from Leonard Green & Partners and NAPA management. Specifically, the buyers completed a recapitalization of NAPA’s practice management company, NAPA Management Services Corporation. Financial terms were not disclosed, but Reuters News reported in February that American Securities was paying nearly $1 billion for NAPA. Read More »

naviHealth Buys Curaspan

naviHealth is moving deeper into post-acute care transitions, in an effort to follow the bundled payments from end-to-end. Last week the company announced it will acquire Curaspan Health Group for an undisclosed amount. Just last August, naviHealth was the target in a $290 million deal, as Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH) acquired 71% of the company from Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, with the goal of acquiring the remaining 29% within four years. naviHealth provides software and analytics to healthcare plans, health systems, physicians and post-acute care providers to manage the entire continuum of post-acute care. Curaspan Health specializes in care transition tools for hospitals and... Read More »

Linden Capital Exits CORPAK Medsystems

Eight years after its initial investment, Linden Capital Partners has sold CORPAK Medsystems, for $174 million. CORPAK develops and manufactures a portfolio of enteral access devices such as enteral feeding safety devices and nasogastric feeding tubes for hospitals, nursing homes and home care. The buyer is Halyard Health (NYSE: NYH), another medical device company focused on preventing infection, eliminating pain and speeding recovery for healthcare providers and their patients. CORPAK’s line of nasogastric tubes complements Halyard’s existing enteral feeding products. Based on published annual revenue of $54 million, we get a multiple of 3.2x. Not bad, for... Read More »

March 2016’s Biggest Health Care Deals

Health care companies are still attracting buyers, and those in the services sectors seem to be the hottest. Last month saw healthy deal volume, at 134 transactions. For a year that started slowly for health care mergers and acquisitions, March 2016’s deal volume is only 3% lower than the same month a year ago. Industry sources have noted the dearth of deals across many industries going into March, even though some uncertainties that troubled markets earlier this year, such as China’s economic slow down, haven’t occupied center stage recently. Leverage is not an overwhelming concern, but credit has tightened over the past few months. And with the new, more onerous federal rules regarding... Read More »