TPG Said to Sell Iasis to Steward Health Care for $2 Billion

(Bloomberg) -- TPG is selling Iasis Healthcare Corp., a hospital chain it has owned for 13 years, to a company backed by private equity rival Cerberus Capital Management for about $2 billion, people familiar with the matter said.

The sale to Steward Health Care System LLC, an acquisitive Boston-based hospital operator started by Cerberus in 2010, is an all-cash deal, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the terms are private. Iasis’s debt will be retired as part of the transaction, Steward said in a statement Friday.

Steward separately arranged to sell much of the hospital real estate it’s acquiring to Medical Properties Trust Inc. for an undisclosed amount. MPT, a Birmingham, Alabama-based real estate investment trust, will lease back the facilities to Steward. Iasis owns 18 hospitals in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Texas and Utah.

The deal, expected to close in the third quarter, will make Steward the largest private for-profit hospital operator in the country, with 36 hospitals in 10 states, the company said.

Iasis, which TPG bought in 2004 for $1.4 billion, shoulders about $1.85 billion of debt, some of it coming due next year. Rising costs for health-insurance plans Iasis offered in Arizona led it to exit the Affordable Care Act market in that state in January. The Franklin, Tennessee-based chain posted an operating loss of $139 million on revenue of $3.3 billion in the year ended Sept. 30.

TPG’s Take

TPG will reap about a 50 percent gain on its $434 million equity investment in Iasis, said a person familiar with the matter, who also asked not to be identified. The gain includes a series of debt-funded dividends.

A spokesman for TPG declined to comment.

The acquisition further extends Steward’s reach beyond eastern Massachusetts, where it has nine hospitals. In February it bought nine hospitals in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania from Community Health Systems Inc.

Steward previously raised money from sale-leasebacks involving MPT. In October it pulled in $1.2 billion by selling its facilities in Massachusetts to the REIT. As part of that deal, Cerberus invested $150 million in MPT shares, and MPT paid $50 million for a small stake in Steward. Steward later completed a $301 million sale-leaseback with MPT for the Community Health hospitals.

The October deal enabled Cerberus to recoup its $250 million equity investment in Steward and pocket additional cash, people familiar with the matter have said.

Changing Game

Steward Chief Executive Officer Ralph de la Torre said Friday in an interview that he sees the deal as an opportunity to further the chain’s vertically integrated model to make every component of health care easier for patients.

“We see that as where health care needs to go,” de la Torre said. “We’re very excited about being able to change the game in all these markets.”

Cerberus, based in New York, manages more than $30 billion in clients’ capital. TPG, whose main offices are in Fort Worth, Texas, and San Francisco, oversees $72 billion.

To contact the reporter on this story: David Carey in New York at dcarey13@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Fournier at efournier5@bloomberg.net, Michael Hytha, Devin Banerjee