Healthcare industry

SAN FRANCISCO - Wells Fargo Securities announced that it has hired David Bloom to be its western region managing director covering health care for public finance investment banking.

Connecticut lawmakers this week overrode the governor's veto to start the process of creating a public health insurer that could use bond financing for part of its implementation.

Standard & Poor’s on Monday downgraded Howard Young Medical Center Inc.’s rating to BBB from BBB-plus due to large operating losses in fiscal 2008 that prompted a debt service covenant violation.

Wishard Health Services last week unveiled its proposal to ask Marion County voters in November to approve up to $704 million of bonds to fund construction of a new $754 million hospital campus to replace aging facilities.

Moody’s Investors Service this week revised its outlook on CentraCare Health System’s underlying A3 rating to stable from negative ahead of its $50 million bond sale next month.

CHICAGO - Des Moines-based Iowa Health System - the state's largest health care provider - this week plans to sell $50 million of new-money bonds and early next month will shift $350 million of its variable-rate debt to a fixed-rate structure as the system seeks to reduce its floating-rate exposure.

The collateral damage from California’s budget crisis now includes three nonprofit regional centers that serve the developmentally disabled, who saw Moody’s Investors Service drop their credit ratings to junk-bond status.

Standard & Poor’s has revised its outlook on John Tolfree Health System’s $12.3 million of debt issued in 1999 for West Branch Medical Center to negative due to declining volume levels.

CHICAGO - Not-for-profit hospitals in Illinois - on the defensive over the level of charitable care they provide to warrant their tax-exempt status - provided $4.7 billion in community benefits in 2008, according to the latest report from the Illinois Hospital Association.

CHICAGO - The Curators of the University of Missouri will enter the market on Thursday with a $350 million sale that includes $275 million of taxable Build America Bonds to fund projects at its various campuses and projects at its health system, including a new patient tower.

A Waukesha County Circuit Court judge has ruled that nonprofit health care provider ProHealth Care is liable for about $12,000 in property taxes on various equipment in its corporate headquarters.

A plan to build a new hospital in Manhattan’s West Village got a green light last week from the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

New Jersey's coffers will feel the effects of St. Mary's Hospital's bankruptcy proceedings, as the state will pay on Sept. 1 a $1.06 million debt service payment on $45.4 million of state contract bonds, with no reimbursement from the hospital on the horizon.

Louisiana Health Secretary Alan Levine on Monday said that the governor’s office is considering the termination of Louisiana State University’s legal affiliation with a proposed academic and charity hospital in New Orleans. The LSU board of supervisors has rejected a governing agreement for the facility that had been negotiated by Levine.

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Lakewood Hospital Association to A2 and assigned a negative outlook due to admission declines and operating losses.

DALLAS - Louisiana State University System's governing board on Monday rejected a proposed management agreement for a new academic and charity hospital in New Orleans to avoid sharing power with Tulane University.

CHICAGO - Former JPMorgan tax-exempt capital markets banking manager Mark T. Melio spent most of the last two decades building the nonprofit health care practices of JPMorgan and Goldman, Sachs & Co. - experience that's now a principal selling point of his new, national advisory firm focused on the struggling sector.

University Medical Center in Tucson opened a new emergency room last week, part of the hospital’s $200 million capital improvement program financed with proceeds from $137 million of revenue bonds sold in 2005 and another $55 million of bonds sold in March of this year.

WASHINGTON - The Internal Revenue Service is conducting audits of $38.2 million of revenue bonds issued by Howard County, Md., for a continuing-care retirement community and $49.3 million of revenue bonds issued by the Tompkins County, N.Y., Industrial Development Agency for Ithaca College.

Washington’s state conduit issuer for hospitals has issued a waiver that would allow Central Washington Hospital to issue bonds without attaining a minimum single-A credit rating, the Wenatchee World newspaper reported this week.