Healthcare merger and acquisition (M&A) activity increased in the third quarter of 2013, with a 16 percent rise in deal volume and 267 new deals, Business Wire reports.
In addition to increasing from the previous quarter, healthcare M&A in the third quarter also rose 20 percent from the same quarter last year. Deal value, however, decreased from the second quarter, dropping 4.2 percent from $53 billion to $50.8 billion, the article noted. Deal value for the quarter was still up 35.1 percent from the third quarter of 2012.
The number of announced deals declined in five sectors compared with the second quarter, according to the article:
- Behavioral healthcare, 60 percent
- Home health and hospice, 50 percent
- Labs, MRI and dialysis, 20 percent
- Physician medical groups, 6 percent
- Medical devices, 8 percent
Healthcare services, meanwhile, announced 160 deals in the quarter, a 6 percent gain from the previous sector and a 13.5 percent increase from 2012's third quarter. Healthcare technology, which announced 107 deals, increased M&A activity 34 percent from the previous quarter and 31 percent from the third quarter of 2012.
There were also a few unusually large hospital deals in the quarter, such as Community Health Systems bidding $7.6 billion for Health Management Associates. Although there are unlikely to be more deals of that size in the future, the article stated, hospital M&A activity is likely to remain high as smaller hospitals seek deals with larger health systems.
Only about 12 percent of hospitals were involved in M&A activity over the past six years. However, in an April survey, a majority of healthcare executives said they expected M&A to grow over the course of the year, with 60 percent saying they anticipated making more deals than in 2013, FierceHealthFinance previously reported.
To learn more:
- here's the Business Wire article