Hospice:
Gentiva To Buy Odyssey For Nearly $1 Billion
Published on Fri Apr 02, 2010
Don't expect your hospice's valuation to go up as a result, one expert cautions. It's time to say goodbye to standalone publicly traded hospice chains, at least for now. Atlanta-based Gentiva Health Services Inc. plans to buy Dallas-based Odyssey Healthcare Inc. for nearly $1 billion, the companies say in a release. Gentiva plans an all-cash transaction of $27 per share for the hospice company that was founded in 1996 and went public in 2001. Odyssey has been the last standalone, forprofit, publicly traded hospice chain since it bought competitor VistaCare Inc. in 2007. Miami-based VITAS Healthcare Corp. is a publicly traded hospice chain, but it is owned by parent Chemed Corp., which also owns Roto-Rooter. VITAS says it is the nation's largest hospice provider. Gentiva and Odyssey's combined hospice locations will operate in 30 states with an average daily census of 14,000, the companies say. The soon-to-be-merged company will have [...]