Dive Brief:
- Intermountain Healthcare and South Dakota-based Sanford Health announced Monday that the two had signed a letter of intent to merge.
- Together the two will operate 70 hospitals — many of which will be located in rural communities across the country — and 435 clinics and insure 1.1 million people.
- Marc Harrison, CEO of Salt Lake City-based Intermountain, will lead the combined organization. CEO of Sanford Health, Kelby Krabbenhoft, will serve as president emeritus.
Dive Insight:
The deal, if it closes, will create one of the nation's largest nonprofit health systems with more than $13 billion in combined annual revenue.
The deal is expected to close in 2021, pending regulatory approvals. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Each organization will continue to operate under their brand names for the "foreseeable future."
Despite the size of the deal, it may be unlikely to receive pushback from antitrust regulators given there is little overlap in their respective hospital markets.
Intermountain mainly operates its network of hospitals in Utah, while Sanford runs hospitals in both North and South Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa.
Both organizations will retain their existing board members to form one combined board. Gail Miller, Intermountain's current board chair, will retain the seat of board chair.
A new executive committee will be created with equal representation from both organizations.
The pandemic has yet to dramatically deter M&A activity, according to a recent analysis.
Hospital M&A activity in the third quarter was significantly up from the second quarter and on par with Q3 2019, according to a recent report from Kaufman Hall.
Most recently, Atrium and Wake Forest completed their merger to create an $11.5 billion system.
Still, Advocate Aurora and Beaumont walked away from their intent to merge and create a $17.5 billion.