$250M Fla. deal falls apart for HCA

Company's plan to offload Pensacola facility crumbles as buyer unable to secure financing

Email | Print By Walker Duncan

According to Modern Healthcare, it's breaking news. According to North Florida’s newspapers, it happened late last week, while many of you were deservedly on vacation. 

Whatever the case, a deal previously announced by HCA to offload one of its Northwest Florida facilities has crumbled due to the weakened economy, according to reports.

As was announced back in June, hospital operator HCA had planned to sell West Florida Hospital in North Pensacola to Baptist Health Care for $245 million. The company had hoped to use the proceeds, as it had with other recent divestitures, to pay down a chunk of its $26 billion debt load.

According to the Pensacola News Journal, HCA execs informed Baptist officials that the company was exercising its right to terminate the deal after Baptist was, due to the current economic climate, unable to secure financing.

Further down the page, the article also cites the facility’s CEO saying that West Florida is no longer on the market.