Summary:
- Healthcare merger and acquisition activity hit a three-year low in the second quarter of this year, according to a report by accounting firm and consultancy KPMG.
- The analysis tallied 245 deals in the second quarter of 2023, a decrease of 7% compared to the same period last year and a 41% decline from the second quarter in 2021.
- Ongoing financial pressures — like potential interest rate hikes, political divisions and uncertainty about valuations of acquisition targets — could keep M&A low in the second half of the year. But some of those headwinds are expected to lighten up as sell-side valuations continue to contract and companies look to divest non-core assets, giving deal-making a boost during the first half of 2024, the report noted.
Healthcare deal-making plummeted three years ago at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as a sudden economic downturn cut off M&A activity.
But the downturn didn’t last long, with KPMG recording an M&A rebound at the end of 2020 through 2021.
After the second quarter of 2022, however, M&A cooled again as interest rates were hiked in an attempt to combat soaring inflation. The downturn has persisted, leading to lower overall deal volume in the second quarter of this year compared with this period last year.
Still, though M&A declined, the healthcare sector saw several major deals. The largest buy was CVS Health’s $10.6 billion acquisition of Oak Street Health, a chain of value-based primary care clinics.
Other large purchases during the period include Optum’s deal to buy home health and hospice provider Amedisys and AmerisourceBergen and private equity firm TPG’s bid for oncology practice network OneOncology.
Strategic buyers — or purchasing companies that look to expand or augment their businesses — dominated M&A in the second quarter this year with 71% of deals. That’s a significant shift from last year, when strategic purchasers only made up 98 of 264 transactions.
“A continuing gap between current valuations and the expectations of would-be acquirers has helped depress activity by financial buyers, although we expect that gap to narrow as economic headwinds in the second half of the year force some [healthcare] companies to seek new capital,” the report’s authors wrote.
The KPMG report found 42% of deals in the second quarter included physician groups, 27% were in the IT and digital health sector, 16% focused on post-acute care and 15% included health systems.
Digital health funding in particular has slowed after reaching record-breaking highs in 2021, creating ideal conditions for M&A, according to a recent analysis from Rock Health. Meanwhile, Kaufman Hall noted 20 hospital and health systems deals in the second quarter, a sign that the market was gaining momentum after the pandemic.
Going forward, the Federal Reserve’s decisions on interest rates could be key to how quickly M&A rebounds, the KPMG report noted.
“A decision to hold rates steady, perhaps to be followed by rate cuts, promised some clarity and stability to buyers dependent on debt markets and appeared likely to unleash pent-up demand for M&A in the sector,” they wrote.