Roper Industries, a Sarasota, Fla.-based company that invests in technology products, has struck another healthcare deal, this time with Strata Decision Technology.
Roper, a publicly traded company with about $3.5 billion in revenue, acquired Strata Friday from Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a New York-based private-equity firm. Terms were not disclosed.
Strata, based in Chicago, provides cost accounting and other finance-based analytics services to more than 1,000 hospitals and health systems including the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins and Intermountain Healthcare.
Strata CEO Dan Michelson said in an interview that the sale answered the company's long-term question and gave it a “permanent home.” With Roper, Strata will have better access to capital and so greater opportunity to grow, he said.
Roper and Strata had been in negotiations for about six months. Michelson said a “big number” of other companies in addition to Roper were interested in buying Strata. He attributed their interest to the company's focus on cost reduction, a top priority for many U.S. hospitals as government and private payments wane.
“We are really entering a time and a space where healthcare resources will be finite,” said Michelson, who served as an executive at Allscripts before joining Strata in 2012. “The ability to make money will be predicated on your ability to take out cost.”
Roper acquired two other healthcare-related tech companies in August: Strategic Healthcare Programs and Innovative Product Achievements. Roper officials have said they want to expand their medical segment, which represents almost 30% of the company's revenue.
Follow Bob Herman on Twitter: @MHbherman
