“Deal making in the healthcare services sectors was definitely impacted by Covid-19, but survived in the end."
NEW CANAAN, Conn. (PRWEB) February 17, 2021
Merger and acquisition activity in the healthcare industry’s services sectors declined 13% in 2020 compared with the year before, according to The 2021 Health Care Services Acquisition Report, Twenty-Seventh Edition. Deal volume for the healthcare services sectors reached 1,116 transactions versus a record high of 1,282 in 2019. Still, 2020 deal volume was 11% higher than it was in 2016 (1,004 deals), five years earlier.
The dollar value of those deals with disclosed prices was significantly lower, down 33% to $60.8 billion, compared with $91 billion in 2019. The highest dollar volume posted in the past five years was for $178 billion, recorded in 2017. That year, the largest deal with a disclosed price was CVS Health’s $78 billion acquisition of Aetna Inc. In 2020, the largest disclosed deal price was only $11 billion, when Churchill Capital Corp. III, a special purchase acquisition company, acquired MultiPlan, Inc., a portfolio company of Hellman & Friedman.
“Deal making in the healthcare services sectors was definitely impacted by Covid-19, but survived in the end,” said Lisa E. Phillips, editor of the 2021 Health Care Services Acquisition Report. “Even with all the pressures on the market, a drop of only 13% in deal volume is more of a relief than a reason to panic.”
Thanks to the pandemic’s effects, only two of the nine services sectors tracked by Irving Levin Associates posted a gain in deal volume compared with 2019. The two sectors in the positive column were Other Services (up 17%), which includes ancillary healthcare services such as urgent care clinics, ambulatory surgery centers and medical office buildings, and Laboratories, MRI & Dialysis (up 21%), with the diagnostic laboratory segment seeing the most M&A activity in 2020.
“The healthcare services sectors were hit hard in the second quarter of 2020, but we began to see a rebound in activity in late summer,” Phillips added. “By the fourth quarter, buyers and sellers were back in the market, releasing some of the demand delayed by the coronavirus and some of the worries over the new Biden administration’s agenda. While the fourth quarter saw record volume, it was not enough to make up for the middle quarters of the year.”
The 2021 Health Care Services Acquisition Report, Twenty-Seventh Edition, contains more than 430 pages of hard-to-find information on all publicly announced hospital, managed care, laboratory services, physician medical group, behavioral health, home health and hospice, and rehabilitation mergers and acquisitions in 2020. The Long-Term Care sector is treated separately in The 2021 Senior Care Acquisition Report. Irving Levin Associates is a New Canaan, Connecticut-based research and publishing firm specializing in healthcare investments. The Health Care Services Acquisition Report may be purchased for $695 by calling 800-248-1668.