Ventas to acquire Ardent Health Services for $1.75 billion
The REIT will own ten acute care, heart, rehab and women’s health hospitals operated by Ardent.
Ventas, a Chicago-based healthcare real estate investment trust, is set to acquire Ardent Medical Services and its Ardent Health Services affiliates for $1.75 billion in cash.
Ventas is acquiring Ardent Medical Services and its Ardent Health Services affiliates for $1.75 billion in cash, Ventas announced Monday.
The move creates growth for the Chicago-based real estate investment trust in the attractive U.S. hospital properties market.
The transaction is expected to close mid-year. At that point, Ventas will own ten hospitals operated by Ardent under the names BSA Health System in Amarillo, Texas, Hillcrest HealthCare System in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Lovelace Health System in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The assets include acute care, heart, rehab and women’s health hospitals.
[See also: Accessing capital in growth mode.]
Ventas intends to separate Ardent Health Services’ hospital operations from its owned real estate and sell the hospital operations to one or more newly-formed entities owned by the current management of Ardent, other equity sources and up to 9.9 percent owned by Ventas, according to the company.
Ardent is among the ten largest for-profit hospital companies in the U.S. It is owned by private equity funds managed by Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. The company generates about $2 billion in annual revenues, with over 50 percent derived from private commercial payers, according to Ventas.
Separately on Monday, Ventas announced that the company’s Board of Directors unanimously approved a plan to spin off most of its post-acute/skilled nursing facilities into an independent, publicly traded REIT.
[See also: Ventas expands real estate footprint with major acquisitions.]
