Transactions & Valuation Issues

Fifty healthcare deals valued at more than $1 billion each have been recorded so far in 2015, according to a report from Irving Levin Associates.

Keith A. Hovan, president and CEO of New Bedford, Mass.-based Southcoast Health System, says Southcoast's pending merger with Providence, R.I.-based Care New England Health System would be "the creation of a new entity," according to the Boston Business Journal.

Providence, R.I.-based Care New England Health System is pursuing an affiliation with New Bedford, Mass.-based Southcoast Health System.

The following healthcare mergers, acquisitions and general partnerships took place or were announced in the past week.

Ashland, Ohio-based Samaritan Regional Health System, a single-hospital system, is now part of Cleveland-based University Hospitals. To reflect the integration with UH, the 55-bed hospital will be called University Hospitals Samaritan Medical Center.

Long Beach, Calif.-based Molina Healthcare has entered a definitive agreement to acquire assets of Vancouver, Wash.-based Columbia United Providers' Medicaid business.

Partnership talks between Trinity Health, a nonprofit health system based in Minot, N.D., and Billings Clinic RegionalCare, a joint venture of Billings (Mont.) Clinic and Brentwood, Tenn.-based RegionalCare Hospital Partners, have folded.

The University of Chicago Medicine and Ingalls Health System, a single-hospital system based in Harvey, Ill., have singed a letter of intent to join forces as a combined integrated health system.

Publicly traded investment manager Apollo Global Management has signed a definitive agreement to acquire RegionalCare Hospital Partners, an eight-hospital system based in Brentwood, Tenn.

Virginia Mason Health System in Seattle will affiliate with Yakima, Wash.-based Memorial Family of Services.