Growing Kaufman Hall & Associates Ends 2009 With Two New Partners

CHICAGO — The Skokie, Ill.-based health care advisory firm Kaufman Hall & Associates Inc. will close out a busy 2009 with two new partners after promoting its head of the mergers and acquisitions group, Kit Kamholz, to the senior status and earlier this year hiring former banker James Blake.

The firm now has nine partners, said Kenneth Kaufman, the managing partner who co-founded the firm in 1985 with partners Therese Wareham and Mark Hall. It has grown from the three founders to more than 80 employees — including 20 focused on advising hospitals — working at offices in the Chicago area, New York City, Boston, Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

At its inception, the firm offered just advisory work. It has expanded to include a mergers and acquisition group, a financial planning group, a strategy group and a software practice. "Every four to five years we've added a new practice," Kaufman said.

Kaufman Hall ranked fifth among advisers in 2007, working on 75 transactions worth nearly $8 billion. Last year, it ranked fourth after working on 169 transactions worth $16 billion. It ranks fourth again this year working on 129 transactions worth $11 billion, according to ThomsonReuters.

After a busy 2008, Kaufman said the firm was looking to add a senior professional. Blake is a well-respected Chicago-based health care banker who joined Citi in 1995. He previously worked at CS First Boston and at Arthur Andersen.

"With the technical nature of all the transactions growing by the day, we were definitely interested in finding a senior individual and we could not have found a better person in Jim," Kaufman said.

Kamholz joined the firm in 2002 as a vice president. During his tenure, the firm said it has grown to become the most active provider of M&A-related services in the nonprofit hospital and health system sector. During his 15 years working on M&A, he has been involved in more than 100 transactions and has worked on transactions involving nonprofits, managed care organizations, long-term care, home health, physician practices, and related facilities.

Kaufman said providers are still facing fallout from the market crisis of a year ago, as some must restructure transactions they moved quickly to restructure in 2008 after the collapse of the auction-rate market and the downgrades of insurers. The sector faces significant uncertainty in the new year as Congress finalizes health care reform legislation.

"Health care reform is the big deal. We will have to wait and see the final nature of the bill and its impact on payments and reimbursements," he said.

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Healthcare industry
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