Healthcare industry

CHICAGO — The nation’s largest nonprofit health care provider, Ascension Health, will acquire Alexian Brothers Health System, a union that marks the latest in a consolidation trend as hospital systems seek to bolster their capital positions and navigate the challenges of federal health care reform.

The board of the bankrupt Sierra Kings Healthcare District in California earlier this month approved a letter of intent to join Adventist Health.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing the bonds of two issuers based in Florida — a health care provider and a community development district.

WASHINGTON — The Great Recession significantly widened states’ pension and retiree health care funding shortfalls, the Pew Center on the States concluded in a report released Tuesday.

Standard & Poor's last week revised its outlook to positive from stable for AHS Hospital Corp., which operates three facilities in northeastern New Jersey. The rating is A.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service has closed its audit of $308 million of variable-rate bonds issued by Murray City, Utah, in a 2003 conduit health care transaction without any change to the bonds’ tax-exempt status.

Heartland Regional Medical Center received positive credit news from both Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service.

Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic will enter the market Wednesday and shift $290 million of variable-rate securities to a fixed-rate structure to open up room in its debt portfolio for future floating-rate debt that would finance two proton therapy centers.

CHICAGO — Indiana University Health Inc., the state’s largest health care system, on Monday will price $228.2 million of variable-rate bonds in the first of three borrowings that will total nearly $800 million.

DALLAS — Sen. David Vitter, R-La., met last week with federal officials to oppose Louisiana’s request for credit enhancement on $400 million of revenue bonds for a new $1.2 billion teaching hospital in New Orleans.

CHICAGO — The Illinois Finance Authority expects to launch a program in the coming months that links state Medicaid providers with private investors willing to purchase overdue payment vouchers in case lawmakers fail to act on Gov. Pat Quinn’s $2 billion borrowing plan to ease the state’s liquidity crisis.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Government-owned hospitals in Florida will come under scrutiny by a panel appointed by Gov. Rick Scott to review whether they are in the best interest of taxpayers.

SAN FRANCISCO — A nonprofit mental-health service provider in Los Angeles County has gone belly-up, leaving a state-backed insurer on the hook for more than $5 million of bonds.

Moody’s Investors Service this week put Loyola University Chicago’s A3 rating on watchlist for a possible upgrade in recognition of the positive impact on its credit profile expected from the school’s upcoming sale of its health system.

SAN FRANCISCO — In this city known for its eccentricities, why should retiree benefit reform be any different?

CHICAGO — Rising pension costs facing many nonprofit health care providers could mean less money to spend on other needs, such as capital projects, Standard & Poor’s warned in a new report.

CHICAGO — The Urbana, Ill.-based health care provider Carle Foundation is set to enter the market later this month with $230 million of new-money debt, and will privately place another $100 million of bonds with two banks in a structure that lowers borrowing costs and limits liquidity risks.

Gov. Gary Herbert last week signed a bill to provide $83 million in bonding authority for buildings at Utah colleges and a mental hospital, despite reservations about using debt.

Moody’s Investors Service last week revised its outlook on $2.74 billion of Aa3-rated University of Pittsburgh Medical Center debt to positive from stable.

Moody’s Investors Service last week affirmed Jefferson Regional Medical Center’s Baa2 underlying rating but revised its outlook to positive from stable due to its continued strong operating profitability, improved liquidity, and favorable debt coverage measures.