Pennant Group Purchases Harmony Hospice in Nevada

The Pennant Group (NASDAQ: PNTG) has purchased Harmony Hospice in Las Vegas. Harmony was one of three affiliated hospices. Pennant Group acquired the other two earlier this year. The transaction closed on Oct. 1, and financial terms were kept confidential. 

Pennant, which owns and operates hospice provider Cornerstone Healthcare, in 2019 was spun off from The Ensign Group (NASDAQ: ENSG). Pennant retained Ensign’s hospice, home health and senior living operations.

“We are thrilled to add Harmony Hospice to our growing presence in southern Nevada,” said Daniel Walker, Pennant’s CEO. “This acquisition was not broadly marketed, but instead was sourced through our extensive local network. While we continue to focus on the unique challenges facing our senior living operations as a result of the coronavirus, this deal is evidence our disciplined acquisition strategy enables us to find compelling opportunities for growth in healthy areas of the organization. We believe we will continue to find many more opportunities like this to expand our ability to serve patients in existing and new markets.” 

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The Harmony deal is the third of three transactions first discussed in the company’s first quarter 2020 earnings conference call. Pennant Group completed the first two transactions in May with the purchase of Prime Hospice, located near Phoenix, and Harmony Hospice of Arizona in the northwestern region of that state. Financial terms for those deals were undisclosed.

Hospice utilization in Nevada hovered around 48.5% in 2018, according to the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization. As of July 2019, 15.7% of the state’s 3.1 million residents were older than 65, and the U.S. Census Bureau anticipates that the number of seniors in the state will rise by 89% as of 2030.

“Harmony Hospice is known for its compassionate team and commitment to high-quality patient care,” said Brent Guerisoli, President of Cornerstone Healthcare, Pennant’s home health and hospice portfolio company. “We welcome these talented caregivers into the Pennant family and look forward to building upon their past success with the tools and resources of our cluster-driven model.”

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The purchase occurred on the same day that Pennant closed a home health joint venture with Scripps Health, a nonprofit health system in San Diego. The joint venture will blend Scripps’s home health business and a local Pennant-affiliated home health agency.  Pennant will  majority-own and managed the agency which offers home health throughout San Diego County under the brand Seaport Scripps Home Health.

In July, Pennant also acquired hospice and home health assets of Signature Health Care at Home for an undisclosed sum, each with multiple locations throughout southeastern Idaho and northern Utah. 

Pennant will continue to be active in the hospice and home health M&A market throughout 2020 and into 2021, Walker indicated.

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