NEW YORK: Heritage Provider Network Inc (HPN) has revived plans for a potential sale, people with knowledge of the matter say, after previous attempts were thwarted by unstable financing markets and a data breach.
The privately managed care company, led by founder Richard Merkin, has been working with advisers to assist in a sales process that’s in the early stages.
It has reached out to buyout firms including Advent International, Carlyle Group Inc, Hellman and Friedman, and TPG Inc to gauge their interest in a potential deal, the people said.
A transaction could value Northridge, California-based HPN at about US$7bil to US$8bil, including debt, one of the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information.
A managed health-care company, Humana Inc, may be interested in taking a minority stake in HPN by partnering with a private equity buyer, according to another person.Deliberations are ongoing, and there’s no certainty they’ll result in a transaction, the people said. Representatives for Advent, Carlyle, Hellman and Friedman, TPG and Humana declined to comment.
A representative for HPN didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
HPN began preparing for a sale towards the end of 2021, Bloomberg News reported at the time.
By the time potential buyers got a close look at the company’s audited financials, the US Federal Reserve had embarked on its most aggressive rate-hiking cycle in decades, which caused borrowing rates to soar and pushed private equity buyers to the sidelines.
Then, in late 2022, HPN affiliate Regal Medical Group suffered a data breach that exposed the personal details of patients across its network.
Merkin founded the predecessor company of what is now HPN in 1979.
It was a pioneer in so-called value-based care, in which the provider agrees to take on some or all of the risk of treating patients in exchange for a fixed payment.
That’s in contrast to the typical model in the United States, in which the health insurer is responsible for paying for care.
The view is that the former model can lead to better health outcomes and lower costs.
HPN calls itself one of the biggest physician-owned managed care organisations in the country, dedicated to improving value-based care.
Traditional health insurers have been moving deeper into the business of taking care of patients.
UnitedHealth Group Inc, the largest US insurer, has assembled a giant care-delivery arm in its Optum division with thousands of physicians.
A deal with Humana would bolster the insurer’s presence in California, where HPN is most concentrated and would see it push deeper into primary care through a playbook that it’s used to form joint ventures with several other private equity firms. — Bloomberg
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