Athenahealth is about to sell out in a $ 17bn deal

Healthcare Technology Company Athenahealth is about to be sold to business owners Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman, according to people familiar with the situation, in a $ 17bn deal that could topple a buy-in from one of the most hit campaigns. recent memory.

Veritas Capital’s private company and hedge fund Elliott Management took Athenahealth privately four years ago, just a few months after senior Jonathan Bush resigned from his post after his life was revealed.

At the time Elliott was fighting a public campaign remove the Bush, a relative of two former US executives, alleges that he was abusing the company. The activist hedge fund participated in Veritas’ acquisition through its Evergreen Coast Capital arm.

The potential with Bain Capital and H&F was in the past reports and the Wall Street Journal. It could be completed in a few days, people familiar with the matter said, adding that the negotiations were at a liquid level and there was no guarantee that the work would continue.

This work may be more recent in several categories health care-buy direct, is one of the few companies that companies have worked together to buy businesses worth $ 10bn or more – so big that even large corporations can’t do it on their own.

As recently as June, H&F teamed up with rivals Blackstone and Carlyle to form a joint venture to buy a family-based drug dealer for $ 34bn.

For Veritas and Elliott, the expected sale will be at the end of an effort to raise more money from Athenahealth, among other things by raising a company that already had money and debt.

It will also confirm the corporate construction sector that started in 2018 when Veritas, run by billionaire Ramzi Musallam, acquired a GE Healthcare component that focuses on pay and other medical programs for around $ 1.1bn.

A few months later, Veritas and Evergreen Coast Capital announced their plan to buy Athenahealth for $ 5.7bn and combine it with the old GE business, renamed Virence Health.

Since then, Athenahealth has revealed $ 180m in price reductions as it continues to raise funds, according to Moody’s – creating additional profits that helped pay for more. debt what the big company did.

Representatives of H&F and Bain Capital declined to comment.