IASIS Healthcare, the Nashville-based start-up hospital company that announced Tuesday it has agreed to buy five Salt Lake area hospitals from Paracelsus Inc., also intends to buy 10 additional hospitals in other states that will bring its total to 15 hospitals with 2,420 beds.
In addition to the five facilities in Utah, IASIS Healthcare said it intends to buy 10 more in Arizona, Florida and Texas from Tenet Healthcare Corp.The Paracelsus deal is scheduled to close in October and the Tenet acquisition shortly thereafter.
IASIS has agreed to buy Salt Lake Regional Medical Center, Pioneer Valley Hospital, Jordan Valley Hospital, Davis Hospital and Medical Center and the closed Paracelsus Regional Hospital (formerly the FHP hospital) in South Salt Lake, for a total of $280 million.
All of the transactions are being made in conjunction with Joseph Littlejohn & Levy, a New York investment firm, which will form a new company to be merged with IASIS to buy the hospitals. Paracelsus intends to recapitalize and retain a partial ownership.
JLL said the firm has committed $1 billion to the buyouts .
"We are currently very optimistic . . . about the hospital field (and believe) the sector is oversold to the point of ignoring major positive demographic trends and the central role of the acute care hospital in our health-care system," said Joseph S. Levy, senior managing director of JLL.