Ardent Health is planning an initial public offering for a second time and could seek to raise $400 million or more, according to people familiar with the matter.
The hospital operator confidentially submitted its IPO registration to the US Securities and Exchange Commission for an IPO that would value Ardent at about $5 billion and perhaps more, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.
Ardent could begin marketing the shares as soon as July and seek to raise as much as $500 million, one of the people said. The IPO will be led by JPMorgan Chase & Co., the person said.
Ardent’s majority owner is Equity Group Investments, the firm founded by Sam Zell, the billionaire investor who died last year. The company hasn’t made a final decision on its listing plans and the details could still change, the people said.
Representatives for Ardent and EGI didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for JPMorgan declined to comment.
Tennessee-based Ardent filed in 2018 to go public but withdrew that plan in 2020. That listing would have been led by Barclays Plc and Citigroup Inc., as well as JPMorgan, according to its filings at the time, which also showed that Ardent had a net loss of $143 million on revenue of about $4.2 billion in 2018.
Through its subsidiaries, Ardent owns and operates 30 hospitals and more than 200 facilities with more than 1,700 aligned providers in six states, including Texas and New Jersey.
EGI partnered with healthcare real estate investment trust Ventas to acquire Ardent in 2015, according to EGI’s website. Ventas took ownership of Ardent’s real estate, and EGI, along with several capital partners, acquired Ardent’s operations and entered into a long-term master lease with Ventas.
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