BrightSpring Health Services has reportedly brokered a deal to acquire Abode Hospice and Home Health, according to PE Hub.
Based in Louisville, Kentucky, BrightSpring provides a diverse array of home- and community-based services, serving more than 350,000 patients across 50 states.
In 2019, BrightSpring was acquired by global investment firm KKR, with Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (Nasdaq: WBA) a minority owner. As part of the deal, the company merged with pharmacy giant PharMerica.
KKR’s acquisition of BrightSpring was valued at $1.32 billion.
Abode is a Durango, Colorado-based home health and hospice provider that also offers palliative care and support services. Abode operates in 12 states and is valued at $775 million, PE Hub reports.
For BrightSpring, the potential move falls in line with the company’s “three legs of the stool” strategy, which combines pharmacy services, day-to-day caregiving and clinical services.
“We certainly have a unique platform, and we’re hopeful that it will be beneficial in the future” BrightSpring CEO and President Jon Rousseau previously told Home Health Care News. “Our platform is centered around offering multiple essential services that we think are all required to optimally and holistically treat an individual with high needs, somebody with significant acute and/or chronic needs.”
Abode has been involved in a number of private equity transactions over the past few years. Summit Partners purchased Abode from Tailwind Capital Partners in 2019, with Tailwind purchasing Abode from Frazier Healthcare Partners the year before.
Combined, BrightSpring and Abode would check in at $6 billion in revenue, according to PE Hub. Upon receiving regulatory approval for the reported acquisition, the combined companies would become one of the largest home-based care providers in the U.S.
“We are absolutely convinced that we have a suite of services that — when combined together the right way, working with the right partners — absolutely results in positive, innovative outcomes,” Rousseau told HHCN last March.
The rumored deal between BrightSpring and Abode reflects larger trends in health care.
In the past couple of years, a number of providers have made strategic moves in an attempt to position their organizations as one-stop-shops for care needs. Overall, the goal of these organizations is to deliver various services that will help keep patients in the home and out of institutionalized settings.
Through a possible acquisition of Abode, BrightSpring would gain a stronger foothold in the home health space, an area that has been a priority for Rousseau since he joined the company in 2016.
“We’ve had a strategic focus on the service lines in which we want to participate and grow, and which are complementary to optimize care,” he previously told HHCN. “We’ve focused on building out more of a clinical capability set, whether that be through pharmacy, through home health and hospice, or through rehab.”
Rousseau believes that as the home continues to gain prominence as a health care setting, the ability to be multifaceted in terms of care delivery will become more important for providers.
Almost a year ago exactly, BrightSpring purchased the home health and specialty infusion businesses of Advanced Home Care, an organization that operated in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
Both BrightSpring and Abode declined to comment on the transaction, which has not been formally announced.
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