Community Health Systems scrapped a $120 million deal to sell three Pennsylvania hospitals and related facilities to WoodBridge Healthcare.
CHS and WoodBridge mutually decided to dissolve the agreement Friday due to WoodBridge's inability to satisfy funding requirements, according to a Tuesday news release. Investment banking firm Zeigler was unable to sell the bonds needed to fund the acquisition, despite earlier indications of confidence in the bond sales, WoodBridge said in a separate release.
Related: Community Health Systems to sell 3 hospitals in $120M deal
Franklin, Tennessee-headquartered CHS signed a purchase agreement with Bucks County, Pennsylvania-based WoodBridge in July to sell nearly all of Commonwealth Health System's assets, including Regional Hospital of Scranton, Moses Taylor Hospital in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre General Hospital. The deal, which was expected to close in the fourth quarter, also included ambulatory surgery centers, emergency departments and outpatient rehabilitation sites.
“The entire WoodBridge team is extremely disappointed in this outcome,” Joshua Nemzoff, WoodBridge board chair, said in a statement. “CHS has gone out of its way to help get this deal done including significant concessions on their part. We appreciate all their efforts to do so.”
CHS said in the release it is evaluating future options for the Pennsylvania facilities.
Last week, CHS signed a definitive agreement to sell Florida-based ShorePoint Health System to AdventHealth for $265 million, as part of a larger effort to offload more than $1 billion in facilities to improve financial performance.
CHS sold three Florida hospitals to Tampa General Hospital in a $294 million deal about a year ago. In August, CHS closed its $160 million sale of Tennova Healthcare-Cleveland in Tennessee to Hamilton Health Care System. The for-profit system was looking to sell two hospitals in North Carolina to Novant Health earlier this year, but pushback from federal regulators led to the deal's demise.
