Sienna Senior Living has sold Preferred Health Care Services (PHCS), its home care business, to Spectrum Health Care LP for cash proceeds of $16.5 million before working capital adjustments.
The deal is the result of two years of debating whether to focus on home care growth through partnerships or other means, or to simply offload the business entirely, Sienna President and CEO Lois Cormack tells Home Health Care News. Since Sienna’s home care business was such a small part of the company as a whole—at just 3% of its net operating income—and given increasing regulations and funding difficulties in the home care space in Ontario, Cormack says it just “made sense” to divest.
“You either have to be big, or you can’t dabble in it,” she says. “We just weren’t big enough, and we really wanted to focus on our core business, so we decided it was time to divest.”
Sienna Senior Living is one of Canada’s largest owners of seniors housing and stands as the largest licensed long-term care provider in Ontario with 35 long-term care homes and 11 retirement residences under its ownership and management. As part of the deal, which is subject to customary and negotiated closing conditions, all PHCS employees, including management, will work under the Spectrum nameplate.
“That was important to us, that our staff [not] be unduly affected,” Cormack says.
Spectrum is an Ontario provider of patient-centered home care, non-urgent patient transfer, companionship care and event medical services, reaching multiple Community Care Access Centres, shares services organizations, hospitals, private pay customers and sporting and entertainment venues. Upon close of the sale, PHCS will be integrated and rebranded into Spectrum and join Spectrum’s health care divisions: Seniors for Seniors, Spectrum Patient Services and Spectrum Event Medical Services.
“For 39 years, Spectrum Health Care has been committed to providing a level of care and a standard of service that is exemplary,” CEO Lori Lord said in a statement. “With the acquisition of Preferred Health Care Services, we will expand our service delivery into new geographic areas, add additional well-trained health care professionals to our existing workforce and continue to focus on building our core business into a leader in the provision of home health care services in Ontario.”
The deal comes in the wake of another Canadian senior living company, Extendicare, recently going big on home health. In May, Extendicare completed the purchase of the Revera Home Health business from Revera Inc. for $83 million.
Written by Kourtney Liepelt
Companies featured in this article:
Extendicare, Preferred Health Care Services, Revera Home Health, Sienna Senior Living, Spectrum Health Care LP