Home Health & Hospice Week

Plus: National chain expands JV with health system.

New York-based private equity firm Wellspring Capital Management has acquired Caring Brands International Inc., the parent of Interim HealthCare and two other international franchise companies, from PE firm Levine Leichtman Capital Partners for undisclosed terms.

“As we have witnessed over the past year and throughout 2021, the demand for delivering high-quality home-based healthcare services has never been more essential,” says CBI and Interim CEO Jennifer Sheets in a release.

“CBI is a perfect fit with our history of investing in care in and around the home and we are excited to support the next phase of growth for the company and its market-facing brands,” Wellspring Capital’s Alexander Carles says in the release.

“Since investing in 2015, we have … driven the increased adoption of Caring Brands’ higher acuity service lines (especially hospice and home health),” Levin Leichtman notes in its release about the deal.

And another PE-backed company has acquired one Louisiana home health company and three Texas hospices.

Irving, Texas-based Excelin Health has bought Grace Home Health headquartered in Lafayette for undisclosed terms. “We are very excited about Excelin’s expansion into Louisiana in partnership with the Grace team,” says Jackson Yang with Excelin parent New York-based PE firm Corinthian Capital Group in a release.

The “opportunity to expand our home health care delivery footprint into a contiguous state has also been a high priority for our team,” says Excelin CEO Alicia Marr in the release.

“Superregional home health and hospice platform” Excelin also has bought three Texas hospice licenses, it says in the release. “We believe hospice is an integral component of our service model and look forward to the ability to support our Texas patients and referral sources,” Marr says.

Excelin operates in California in addition to Texas and Louisiana, it notes.

Meanwhile: In Florida, Encompass Health Corp. and Baptist Health South Florida are expanding a joint venture agreement to include the Baptist Health home health agency in Miami. “Encompass Health has been a valued home health joint venture partner in Boynton Beach, Florida, with a proven ability to provide high-quality, cost-effective care while avoiding unnecessary hospital readmissions,” Baptist Health’s Bill Ulbricht says in a release.

Encompass operates 249 home health locations and 95 hospice locations in 42 states and Puerto Rico, the Birmingham, Alabama-based company says.