Healthcare industry

CHICAGO - Moody's Investors Service yesterday said it would develop a new set of liquidity measures to take into account when examining the credit profiles of universities, hospitals, and other nonprofit groups.

Standard & Poor’s last week revised its outlook to negative from stable on St. Louis-based SSM Health Care’s AA-minus rating on $1 billion of debt due to ongoing economic strains on its balance sheet.

DALLAS - Arkansas Children's Hospital will finance more than half the cost of a $121 million expansion to its Little Rock facility with an upcoming negotiated sale of $100 million of revenue bonds by Pulaski County.

CHICAGO - Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn on Friday named prominent physician and activist Quentin Young to serve as chairman of the once scandal-tainted Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board that regulates billions of dollars in health care-related construction projects.

Virtua Health in southwestern New Jersey will issue $565 million of fixed- and variable-rate bonds in the next few weeks to finance a new 368-bed hospital set to open spring 2011.

The Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority last week created an eight-member advisory committee to evaluate a possible merger with its sister authority, the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency.

Holders of Grace Manor health care facility bonds will be looking to the State of New York Mortgage Agency to make them whole following the nursing home's bankruptcy filing earlier this month.

Advocate Condell Medical Center announced that it has named David Cartwright its new vice president in finance.

Standard & Poor’s earlier this month stripped Care Initiatives’ $86 million of debt from a 2006 issue of its investment-grade status

Nearly a third of Ohio’s hospitals surveyed by an industry group said they have cancelled or delayed construction and capital-improvement projects as they struggle to maintain fiscal stability.

DALLAS - The Texas House this week is considering a $300 million appropriation to pay debt service for what would be the first issue from $3 billion in cancer research bonds, but the path to actual issuance is complicated by a requirement for private investment.

The Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority Thursday will create a merger committee to move forward with Gov. Deval Patrick's plans to combine the authority with the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency, although market participants worry the initiative may increase borrowing fees.

CHICAGO - Chicago-area not-for-profit hospitals enjoy an estimated $498 million in tax-exemption benefits annually while collectively providing just $176 million in charity care, according to a new report from a Chicago-based fiscal research organization.

CHICAGO - A nonprofit hospital's debt structure - particularly its variable-rate debt exposure and associated liquidity risks - is one of several credit factors that Moody's Investors Service will pay special attention to in 2009, the rating agency said in a report released yesterday.

WASHINGTON - In an effort to boost disclosures for non-pension, health care, and other post-employment benefits, the National Federation of Municipal Analysts is urging issuers to release as much supplemental information in annual financial statements and bond offering documents as necessary "to effectively explain and communicate" their specific OPEB situation and funding approach.

Standard & Poor's took negative credit actions on a pair of North Dakota hospitals last week.

Death and disease know no recession. Hospitals do.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $149.7 million of revenue bonds issued in 2005 by the Maryland Health and Higher Educational Facilities Authority.

State officials will still move ahead with plans to potentially merge the Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority with the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency despite the fact that state Sen. Marian Walsh Tuesday announced that she would relinquish her new role at MassHEFA.

WASHINGTON - Continuing care retirement communities face more rating downgrades than upgrades in 2009 because of limited access to capital, slower unit re-occupancy caused by falling real estate values, and significantly reduced liquidity due to losses on investments, Fitch Ratings said yesterday.