Healthcare industry

Moody’s Investors Service stripped Proctor Hospital of its investment grade rating recently, lowering the credit to Ba1 from Baa3 and warning of further action by assigning a negative outlook due to a decline in operating performance since fiscal 2007.

A labor union filed a lawsuit last week to try to stop a Bronx hospital from using recovery zone facility bonds to build a parking garage. The suit seeks an injunction to stop finalization of the financing and to require the public hearing process to begin again.

The Dormitory Authority of the State of New York gave final approval to $791.3 million of bonds at its board meeting yesterday, while also creating a finance committee as required under a public authorities reform measure enacted last year.

Cincinnati-based Catholic Healthcare Partners has acquired Jewish Hospital, which will become part of CHP affiliate Mercy Health Partners of southwest Ohio.

Fitch Ratings this week downgraded Marquette, a continuing-care retirement community located north of Indianapolis, to BBB from A-minus.

Standard & Poor’s last week stripped Proctor Hospital of its investment-grade rating, downgrading the facility to BB-plus from BBB-minus due to three years of declining operations that have hurt its debt-service-coverage ratios.

CHICAGO — Private-equity group Cerberus Capital Management LP yesterday said it would buy Boston’s nonprofit Cerberus Christi Health Care for $830 million, taking over the Catholic system’s long-term debt and spending $400 million on capital upgrades.

BRADENTON, Fla. — A biomedical institute on Florida’s east coast is exploring replacing its planned conduit issuer in hopes of lowering the cost of selling $70 million of bonds to finance the construction of a research ­facility.

The 11-member board that will have the final say on the plan to issue $400 million of revenue bonds to build Louisiana’s new $1.2 billion, 462-bed teaching hospital in New Orleans got its first permanent member this week.

BRADENTON, Fla. — With President Obama’s signature barely dry on the massive health care reform bill, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Treasury Department and the Department of Labor, alleging that the bill is unconstitutional.

Standard & Poor’s has revised its outlook to negative from stable on Lake Region Healthcare Corp.’s A-minus rating due to strain on its balance sheet. Bonds for the provider were sold in 2002 through the Fergus Falls Housing and Redevelopment Authority.

Fitch Ratings placed the Detroit Medical Center’s revenue bonds on positive watch and affirmed its BB rating Monday after a for-profit health care system announced it was interested in taking over the state’s largest charity care hospital.

Standard & Poor’s late last week said Provena Hospitals’ BBB-plus rating would not be affected by the Illinois Supreme Court decision upholding a ruling that cost Provena Covenant Medical Center its property tax exemption because it failed to provide sufficient charity care.

Pennsylvania-based ACTS Retirement-Life Communities Inc., the largest nonprofit continuing care retirement community provider in the U.S., will affiliate with two smaller East Coast senior-living centers, a move that may boost debt-service coverage for one.

CHICAGO — Detroit Mayor Dave Bing said he was “elated” by Friday’s announcement that a for-profit health care system is interested in buying the Detroit Medical Center — Michigan’s largest charity-care provider — and infusing $800 million into the center’s Detroit campus.

Moody’s Investors Service last week revised Temple University’s outlook to negative from stable as fiscal challenges at Temple University Health System may affect the school’s balance sheet.

CHICAGO — Nonprofit health care providers continue to grapple with fallout from the collapse of the auction-rate market, and the sector now faces up to $31.5 billion of bank-credit-supported debt that needs to be renewed by 2013, according to a new report by BMO Capital Markets.

CHICAGO — The Illinois Supreme Court yesterday upheld an appellate court decision supporting the state’s decision to strip Provena Covenant Medical Center in Urbana of its property tax exemption because it failed to provide sufficient charity care in a case that has garnered national attention.

CHICAGO — Two rating agencies delivered good news to Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic this week in recognition of its fitter financial profile, including improved investment returns and revisions to its defined pension plan that lowered its liabilities.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn last week signed legislation allowing the state to issue $250 million of general obligation certificates in the current fiscal year to leverage additional federal matching dollars for Medicaid.