|
HEALTH
SERVICES CORPORATION
OF AMERICA IS
SOLD...
HSCA Headquarters in Cape Girardeau,
Missouri
By: Ray Owen
Southeast Missourian Newspaper
Health Services
Corporation of America was started three decades ago with $75 cash
in a basement room and ballooned into a successful purchasing
organization for hospitals.
The Cape Girardeau-based company was sold in a
multimillion-dollar deal to MedAssets
Inc., with offices in Alpharetta, Ga., and Northbrook, Ill.
Earl Norman, chairman of the board and chief
executive officer of HSCA, which owns the company's headquarters at Lorimont
Place, 240-280 S. Mount Auburn Road, announced the sale
Tuesday.
Included in the acquisition is an agreement for
MedAssets to lease Lorimont Place with an option to purchase it within
two years. The complex includes the four-level, 60,000-square-foot
HSCA corporate headquarters building, 32,000 square feet of retail
lease space, a two-level parking garage and 1.3-acre area designed to
accommodate up to a 12,000-square-foot anchor tenant with available
land options.
Another one of Norman's companies, Lorimont Place,
Ltd., headed by commercial broker, Tom Kelsey who was involved
in the real estate portion of the transaction will continue to
manage and lease the corporate development. Norman will continue to
maintain an office there.
The acquisition established MedAssets as one of the
four largest group-purchasing organizations in the United States. It
gives the company combined purchasing power of more than $4.5 billion
in existing contracts with 13,000 members nationwide. Through group
purchasing, the companies offer medical equipment and supplies to
hospitals at lower costs.
Norman will remain a shareholder of MedAssets and
serve on the MedAssets board.
"This is a good deal for everyone
concerned," Norman said. "It will eventually result in up to
30 new workers in the immediate area."
A combination of HSCA, MedAssets and InSource, a
MedAssets company, "is a positive step toward establishing the
business as the most effective and efficient provider in bringing
value to all constituents, suppliers and providers, from the largest
to the smallest," said Norman. "The blending is a
significant step toward creating a new, more efficient procurement
service company for the health-care industry."
"It has been a fun trip," Norman said.
"We started in the hometown, and after a full business life, it
will remain in the hometown. I'm looking forward to retirement. I want
to give up the day-by-day managerial duties."
Norman founded the company Feb. 1, 1969, calling on
10 hospitals with a total of 1,200 beds that provided the market for
the beginning of a company called Mid-America Shared Services. The
company now calls on between 1,600 and 1,700 health-care facilities
and employs about 135 people, half of them locally. The company
services accounts in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
During the 1980s, the company acquired Cooperative
Purchasing Association of Arizona, Shared Services Corp. of Montana
and Commodities Purchasing Association of Colorado. Norman changed the
company name to HSCA in 1984 to reflect both the national scope and
size of the organization.
In 1990, HSCA formed a foundation to provide money
for careers in health care. Since then, Health Careers Foundation has
helped more than 3,000 students pursue health-care careers.
"We're proud of this foundation," said
Norman. "MedAssets Inc. has indicated it will continue the
program."
Scholarships and loans are available to high school
or college students seeking a degree or certificate in health care.
The program is offered exclusively to those seeking a career in the
allied health professions, not medicine or hospital administration.
Note: Office space in the luxurious HSCA
building is now available. Tom Kelsey with Lorimont Place, Ltd.
will handle the leasing. For more information on what is available
click here
|
