The M&A Insider

You may have noticed that The Braff Group Index on our Databank page in the print issue looks a little bit different these days.

In the index, we used to track the stock performance of 38 companies in seven key healthcare service sectors: home medical equipment, home health services, specialty pharmacy, hospitals, long-term care, e-health and healthcare staffing.

But there are so few public companies in the HME industry nowadays—most recently Apria Healthcare announced it would no longer file reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)—that the index lost some of its punch.

After brainstorming with Dexter Braff at The Braff Group, we decided to transition the focus on merger and acquisition activity and rebrand the index as the M&A Insider.

In the January, February and the upcoming March issues, we feature graphs on HME transactions per quarter from 2006-13, private equity investment in HME from 2006-13 and HME deal flow from 2001-13, respectively.

Here's a sneak peak at that last graph, since it won't get published for another couple of weeks:

deal flow.png

And here's the accompanying commentary from Braff:

Deal flow fell dramatically in 2013. The good news is that the fall-off is not quite as dramatic as the numbers suggest, as deal volume in 2012 was artificially inflated as sellers sought to capture favorable capital gains treatment set to expire at the end of the year. Deals that would have otherwise closed in 2013 were accelerated to 2012, contributing to the slow down.  Moreover, even with the slide, the sector remains extremely active as companies continue to turn to M&A to capture share.

We hope you find this information more useful.

Enjoy.