Dive Brief:
- Just a few weeks after Prime Healthcare walked away from a deal to purchase the Daughters of Charity Health System, several potential buyers have expressed interest in one or more of the six nonprofit CA hospitals.
- Although the Daughters of Charity would not disclose the names of the interested parties, the San Jose Mercury News reports that Prime Healthcare is still interested, as are Alecto Healthcare Services, Blue Wolf Capital and Santa Clara County.
- Prime Healthcare backed out of its original deal claiming that the conditions CA attorney general Kamala Harris had put on the sale made the deal financially impossible.
Dive Insight:
The major condition Harris placed on Prime Healthcare that caused the company to initially walk away was that it continue to run the hospitals at their current level of services for 10 years. When a reporter from the San Jose Mercury News asked Harris whether the conditions she placed on Prime were a "template" for what other companies could expect if they bid, she said they were not, and that all proposals would be evaluated separately. "Each case is unique to its facts," said Harris, who will still have final approval over the deal even if the Daughters of Charity ends up filing for bankruptcy. "The offer we made to Prime was unique and tailored to Prime."