Bon Secours Mercy Health’s affiliate HealthSpan Partners has sweetened its deal to buy Surgery Partners after the outpatient facility chain received a competing offer.
Under the new terms announced Monday, Surgery Partners’ shareholders would receive $25.00 per share in cash – up from $23.50 in the original agreement last month – in a deal worth $6 billion.
Although the deal is expected to close in the first quarter of next year, shareholders – excluding those linked to Surgery Partners' largest stakeholder Bain Capital Private Equity – would receive extra monthly payments if the close date is delayed after March 1, and could get up to $26.61 per share if the deal isn’t complete by Oct. 23.
Surgery Partners, which operates over 200 short-stay surgical facilities in 30 states, said the offer from an undisclosed bidder would have acquired the company for $28.00 per share, but that the deal would have taken “materially longer to close” compared to an acquisition by HealthSpan. It also risked being held up by regulators, the company said.
Bloomberg reported that UnitedHealth was the unidentified bidder. Surgery Partners did not respond to a request for comment on the bidder’s identity.
UnitedHealth has heavily invested in ASCs and other outpatient locations through its Optum subsidiary, which is one of the largest outpatient surgery operators in the country following its 2017 acquisition of SCA Health.
Health systems and other healthcare companies have increased their investments in outpatient surgical locations in order to capitalize on burgeoning patient demand for surgeries in lower-cost settings.
This summer, Ascension completed its $3.9 billion acquisition of AmSurg, another major player in the ASC space with more than 250 locations. The health system’s ambulatory footprint now trails Tenet Healthcare’s United Surgical Partners, a network of over 535 surgical care facilities acquired by the for-profit system in 2015.
