For MedCath (NASDAQ:MDTH), it’s another week and another hospital sale.
The Charlotte, North Carolina-based hospital operator on Monday announced definitive agreements to sell its $192 million stake in hospitals in Arkansas and New Mexico. The announcement follows separate deals last week for MedCath to sell its stake in its cardiac catheterization laboratory assets in North Carolina.
MedCath has signed a definitive agreement to sell Heart Hospital of New Mexico to Lovelace Health System in Albuquerque, New Mexico for $119 million. Lovelace’s parent company, Ardent Health Services, has poured more than $289 million into Lovelace’s facilities, equipment and staff since 2002.
MedCath has entered a separate agreement to sell its $73 million, 70.3 percent ownership and management stake in Arkansas Heart Hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas to AR-MED. AR-MED is a limited liability corporation that is majority owned by Dr. Bruce Murphy, a physician with the Little Rock Cardiology Clinic and an investor in the hospital.
Announcements of the hospital sales came on the same day that MedCath released its fiscal second-quarter earnings. MedCath reported a loss of $13.5 million, a more than 20 percent increase compared to the same period a year ago. Revenue in the quarter was virtually flat at $97.2 million, up just 0.4 percent compared to the second quarter of fiscal 2010.
MedCath has spent much of the last year selling its hospitals or ownership stakes in hospitals and hospital services. The company last year formed a strategic committee to evaluate selling itself or its assets. Among those sold assets was its cath lab division, MedCath Partners. Last week DLP Healthcare, a joint venture between Duke University Health System and LifePoint Hospitals (NASDAQ: LPNT), bought most of MedCath Partners for $25 million. MedCath later announced a separate sale of its stake in its remaining cath lab operation, Coastal Carolina Heart, for $5 million to New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, North Carolina.
