Top 10 Transactions in Q3:17

Top 10 Transactions in Q3:17

Ten of the largest deals announced in the third quarter broke the $1.0 billion mark, for a total of $29.9 billion (70% of the quarter’s total spending of $42.7 billion). The largest transaction, Gilead Sciences’ $11.9 billion acquisition of biotech firm Kite Pharma, made up 28% of the quarter’s combined total spending. KKR & Co. made three of these billion-dollar acquisitions, either directly or through portfolio companies, for a total of nearly $7.3 billion. All three targets were publicly traded companies in very discrete fields: internet healthcare source WebMD, air ambulance company American Medical Response, and the... Read More »
PE Firms Pay Big for Medical Transportation

PE Firms Pay Big for Medical Transportation

KKR & Co., through its portfolio company, is the second private equity firm to pay more than $2 billion for a medical transportation company in 2017. The medical transportation market, falling under the “Other Services” category, has seen a couple of large deals in 2017, as some big name companies decide to change hands. On August 8, 2017, Envision Healthcare Corporation (NYSE: EVHC) announced it was selling its medical transportation subsidiary, American Medical Response (AMR), to Air Medical Group Holdings, Inc. (AMGH), a portfolio company of KKR & Co. (NYSE: KKR). The deal comes more than two years after KKR bought it from Bain Capital and Brockway Moran for an undisclosed... Read More »

Summer Heat Sinks Deal Making in July

Deal makers took a break in July, judging by the lower deal volume and lower deal value posted in our preliminary data for the month. Compared with the previous month, deal volume dropped 20%, to 100 transactions, and deal value fell 49%, to $8.7 billion. Third quarters are typically slower for mergers and acquisitions, although there have been a few exceptions. In 2015, a record 411 deals were announced in Q3, which was 17% better than the same quarter in 2014, and 10% better than the third quarter in 2016. With little more than one month into Q3:17, we’ve logged 106 transactions. Not exactly a strong pace, but that could change. At this writing, the Senate Republicans failed to get the... Read More »
WebMD Goes Private in $3.6 Billion Deal

WebMD Goes Private in $3.6 Billion Deal

A portfolio company of KKR (NYSE: KKR) just announced the 99th eHealth deal of 2017, and the second largest eHealth deal in our M&A database dating back to 1993. On July 24, 2017, KKR portfolio company Internet Brands, an online media and software services organization, announced the acquisition of WebMD Health Corp. (NASDAQ: WBMD). The company provides health information services, serving consumers, physicians, healthcare professionals, employers, and health plans through its public and private online portals, mobile platforms and health-focused publications. The deal comes five months after New York-based WebMD said it would explore strategic options following a slowdown in... Read More »
PE Firms Pay Big for Medical Transportation

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 »