(Bloomberg) — Medical Properties Belief Inc., one of many largest hospital landlords within the US, has moved to take management of three Southern California well being care entities after accusing the proprietor — Prospect Medical Holdings — of defaulting on debt.
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MPT has demanded that the board members of three items resign to allow them to get replaced by MPT-designated impartial managers, in line with a Nov. 18 letter to Prospect from MPT, a duplicate of which was seen by Bloomberg Information. The corporate additionally warned Prospect that MPT might nonetheless foreclose on the properties if the debt default shouldn’t be cleared.
MPT confirmed the demand Tuesday, saying in an announcement that its relationship will stay as Prospect’s landlord and “will proceed to don’t have any involvement in hospital operations.”
“As disclosed on MPT’s current earnings name, Prospect didn’t pay money lease through the third quarter as its liquidity continues to be impacted by ongoing gross sales processes in numerous east coast markets,” a spokesperson for MPT mentioned within the assertion. “Consequently, MPT has asserted its proper to nominate new impartial administrators to the Board of sure Prospect entities.”
The targets embrace one in every of Prospect’s flagship entities, Alta Hospitals System, which owned three hospitals when Prospect purchased the corporate in 2007. That buy started Prospect’s experiment in what it calls “coordinated regional care,” which goals to spice up revenue by making medical companies in an space extra environment friendly.
Representatives for Medical Properties Belief and Prospect Medical didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Medical Properties Belief buys medical amenities and leases them again to the operators. In 2019, Prospect offered a number of properties to MPT as a part of a $1.55 billion deal.
MPT introduced a restructuring of its settlement with Prospect final yr after months of missed lease funds. Beneath the deal, MPT wound up holding greater than $1 billion value of belongings associated to Prospect. The health-care firm refinanced some debt, however nonetheless owes a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} to its landlord and different lenders.
The owner has tangled with different medical corporations that run hospitals on property that MPT owns. Bankrupt hospital operator Steward Well being Care System accused Medical Properties of improperly interfering with a court-approved plan to promote some properties to repay collectors.