Tenet, USPI To Combine Ambulatory Surgery And Imaging Centers In New JV

(RTTNews) - Tenet Healthcare Corp. (THC) and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe have signed a definitive agreement for Tenet and United Surgical Partners International or USPI to combine their short-stay surgery and imaging center assets into a new joint venture.

The Tenet and USPI joint venture will be the largest provider of ambulatory surgery in the United States.

Under the terms of the agreement, Tenet will initially own 50.1 percent of the joint venture and will consolidate its financial results.

Welsh Carson and the other existing investors in USPI will initially own the remaining 49.9 percent. Tenet will have a path to full ownership of USPI over the next five years through a put/call structure.

The joint venture will have ownership interests in 244 ambulatory surgery centers, 16 short-stay surgical hospitals and 20 imaging centers in 29 states. It will maintain the USPI brand, as well as USPI's three-way partnership model with physicians and leading not-for-profit health systems.

The combined operations will have partnerships with 50 health systems and more than 4,000 physicians at the facility level.

Bill Wilcox will continue to lead USPI as chief executive officer, and Brett Brodnax, president and chief development officer of USPI, will lead the company's strategy and growth efforts.

Kyle Burtnett, senior vice president for outpatient services at Tenet, will join USPI as president of ambulatory services. He will take on the additional role of chief integration officer for the new venture.

Tenet has also entered into a definitive agreement to acquire from Welsh Carson the operations of Aspen Healthcare Ltd., which operates nine private hospitals and clinics in the U.K.

Aspen began as a two hospital system that was acquired by USPI in April 2000 with backing from Welsh Carson. USPI grew the system before a restructuring of the USPI group in 2012, which resulted in it becoming an independent company majority owned by Welsh Carson.