Health Care Services M&A Posts Second-Highest Dollar Level in 2007, According to Irving Levin Associates, Inc.

March 25 - Business Wire - Merger and acquisition activity in the health care industry’s service sectors moderated in 2007 after the record year set in 2006. A total of 489 deals were announced in nine sectors of the health care services industry, down 8% from the 534 deals announced in 2006. Even though the dollar value of those deals declined 37% from $90 billion in 2006 to $57 billion in 2007, 2007 still outspent every other year. “While the M&A market for health care services rode a bull market from 2003 through the middle of 2007, the recent crisis in the credit markets tempered activity in the second half of the year. Still, our figures reveal that 2007 is the second-largest year ever in terms of dollars committed to health care services M&A,” commented Sandy Steever, editor of The Health Care Acquisition Report, Fourteenth Edition. “While the credit crisis sidelined a number of financial buyers toward the end of 2007, especially private equity firms, strategic buyers, who had avoided bidding wars with financial buyers, entered and picked up the slack in the market. The relative absence of financial buyers appears to have depressed acquisition pricing from the middle of 2007 through the present,” continued Mr. Steever. Read More.