Catholic Health Initiatives was hit by the sharp year-end downturn in the stock market in 2018, posting a bottom line loss of $424.3 million, a $627 million swing from the year-earlier quarterly profit of $203.6 million.
CHI, which just merged with Dignity Health to form CommonSpirit Health based in Chicago, posted a non-operating loss of $362.8 million driven by $331 million in investment losses and $29.8 million in losses tied to interest rate swap agreements, according to the system's fiscal second-quarter earnings report.
That compares with a non-operating gain of $217.1 million in the year earlier-quarter, which included investment gains of $198.7 million and a $12.3 million gain on interest rate swaps.
According to a CHI spokesman, CHI has since recovered from the stock market's fall. The stock market recorded a negative 13.5% return in the fourth quarter, as measured by the S&P 500 index. The system felt the effects of "one of the worst stock market downturns in recent history," the spokesman said in an email. "Investment results have improved significantly since the end of the (fiscal) second quarter, resulting in a recovery of a substantial portion of that investment loss."
The system's operating income in the quarter also fell, with CHI reporting a negative $36.6 million loss on operations. When that is combined with restructuring and impairment costs of $20.6 million, the total operating loss comes to $57.2 million.