HCA Plans $2 Billion Dividend Payout to Its Owners

[NashVegas]

Source: The Tennessean

HCA Inc. plans to pay a new $2 billion dividend to its current owners, including members of Nashville's Frist family that along with three private equity firms took the hospital operator private four years ago.

...
Plans for the payout were announced as Nashville-based HCA posted a 24 percent increase in its third-quarter net income to $243 million. Revenues rose 1.5 percent to $7.6 billion, but inpatient admissions at its hospitals open for at least a year fell 0.6 percent because of fewer deliveries of babies and tougher comparisons with higher volumes a year earlier when the H1N1 flu was rampant.

HCA said it would use a $1.5 billion bond sale and borrowings under its senior secured credit facilities to pay for the dividend. It would bring to roughly $4.2 billion in payouts to the investors from HCA this year alone.
...
The private equity group that includes affiliates of or funds sponsored by KKR, Bain Capital and the private equity arm of Bank of America holds 91.8 million shares, or 97 percent, of HCA's current stock, according to a regulatory filing by the company in May. Thomas F. Frist III and William R. Frist, sons of HCA co-founder and former CEO Dr. Tommy Frist Jr., indirectly hold 17.8 million shares of that overall stake.

Read more: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20101110/BUSINESS01/11100374/HCA+plans++2+billion+dividend+payout+to+its+owners

---

Is Mitt still associated with Bain?

[RC]

1. If this is not a strong case for Single Payer, Universal Health Care, what is?

Greedy, obscene, fraud, RICO, legalized murder for money.

[dmosh42]

2. Seems to be "profit-based" system! Yeah we fixed it! n/t

[Steerpike]

3. this is why

I don't believe in Karma...

[KeepItReal]

4. Correction: Mitt Romney *and* Sen. Bill Frist are high-steppin in the endzone

"Thomas F. Frist III and William R. Frist, sons of HCA co-founder and former CEO Dr. Tommy Frist Jr., indirectly hold 17.8 million shares"

and Mitt has "blind trust" shares in Bain Capital:

from the Associated Press: "In 1984, Romney founded Bain Capital, an investment company that helped finance Staples, Domino's Pizza and Brookstone. He then became interim CEO at Bain and Co., the consulting firm where he had worked in the early 1980s. He was credited with pulling Bain and Co., out of financial straits.

Aides said his assets have been held in a blind trust that he and his wife set up when he became governor in 2002. The adviser who provided the estimate of his assets cautioned that the number is based on 2006 and 2005 financial activity and could amount to a bigger total once the disclosure report is filed later this year.."

[Doremus]

9. Meg Whitman is also former Bain.

[ixion]

5. The Insurance Industry Profit Protection Act is working, hurray!

:sarcasm:

[Lurks Often]

6. Maybe you should actually read the article

HCA is a hospital group, not a health insurance company

[ixion]

7. LOL... like there's a difference?

Are you somehow trying to say there is no correlation between health insurance companies and hospitals?

[ananda]

8. Many hospitals offer their own insurance.

nt

[ixion]

10. exactly my point...

thanks.

[Lurks Often]

12. No

not that I see that the so called Healthcare Reform bill has anything to do with a hospital group making money

[rfranklin]

11. This is a "bust out" Just look at how they're getting that money...

They are borrowing it and if the loaners and bond holders get it back it will be a miracle. They are concerned that the profits will not be there in the future so they are mortgaging the company to the hilt.

Actually, next move will be to doll up the balance sheet with phoney numbers, announce they are taking it public. They'll make another killing and the publicly held company will be teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

[Zenlitened]

13. Using their hospital as an ATM.

What savvy businessmen they are!

(Note: Do not try this at home. Joe and Jane Workingstiff-types who took equity out of their homes are terrible, terrible people who caused all the world's problems and must be punished until the rich are comfortable, smug and self-satisfied once again.)