Following a tempestuous 2023, senior-focused major care supplier Cano Health made headlines as soon as once more this week. The corporate — which went public in 2021 by way of a $4.4 billion SPAC merger — filed for Chapter 11 chapter on Sunday.
The business reacted with out shock, with consultants calling the chapter a direct results of mismanagement, a quixotic progress technique and poor market choice.
In a submitting with the U.S. Chapter Court docket for the District of Delaware, Cano reported $1.2 billion in property and $1.4 billion in debt. The submitting was supported by lenders holding roughly 86% of the corporate’s secured revolving and time period mortgage debt and 92% of its senior unsecured notes.
“This settlement permits Cano Well being to considerably scale back its debt and place the corporate to attain long-term success,” the agency mentioned in a press launch.
The corporate additionally introduced that it acquired a dedication of $150 million in debtor-in-possession financing from sure present secured lenders. This funding, which is topic to court docket approval, is supposed to maintain Cano working in the course of the restructuring course of.
Cano mentioned it expects the courts to approve the restructuring within the second quarter of this 12 months.
The chapter submitting comes lower than a 12 months after three of Cano’s board members publicly resigned in protest of its governance technique. They left in late March — a time when the Miami-based firm’s inventory had dropped 80% in 12 months. (For these questioning, Cano’s inventory was buying and selling at $0.26 per share as of Thursday.)
One of many board members who stepped down was Barry Sternlicht, the billionaire CEO of Starwood Capital Group. On the time, he issued a blistering press release, expressing that he had been “extraordinarily troubled” by the corporate’s “poor working choices and efficiency” over the previous two years.
He identified that Cano had acquired about $1.49 billion in gross proceeds when it went public, and people proceeds included about $800 million from personal placement traders together with himself, in addition to blue chip traders like Constancy, Third Level Capital, Maverick Ventures, BlackRock and Owl Creek Companions.
“Quick ahead to at the moment, this administration staff has expended almost all this money and the corporate has not loved any demonstrable enchancment in its core profitability,” Sternlicht wrote within the press launch.
Cano’s governance construction induced the corporate’s inventory worth “to be decimated, dropping over 90% from its debut,” Sternlicht added. He additionally lamented that the corporate has been “saddled with a crippling debt burden.”
Sternlicht wrote that he had straight communicated his considerations to his fellow board members and Cano CEO Marlow Hernandez “on quite a few events,” solely to be ignored. He known as for Hernandez to be faraway from his place as chairman and CEO, calling his continued tenure “dangerous to the pursuits of stockholders and to Cano staff.” Hernandez ended up stepping down in June.
Like many healthcare consultants, Howard Forman — a professor of radiology, public well being and economics at Yale — had been following the Cano drama final 12 months. In an interview this week, he mentioned that he discovered the information of Cano’s chapter “so, so unsurprising.”
He mentioned he lately talked about Cano in a dialog with Harlan Krumholz, one other Yale doctor professor with whom he hosts a podcast. Final month, Forman informed Krumholz that he thought they need to speak concerning the downfall of Cano in one in every of their episodes.
“I had an inventory of SPACs that had spectacularly blown up. As I used to be learning Cano, I noticed what a whole mess it was — between what seems to be mismanagement, most likely overly aggressive progress, after which simply actually dangerous timing when it comes to focusing on the Medicare Benefit market on the worst attainable time,” Forman declared.
He added that Cano was “continually elevating cash that was diluting shareholders at each step of the way in which,” and that the corporate has by no means been in a position to “successfully pay their payments on their very own.”
It’s vital to notice that when Cano went public, the marketplace for senior major care was relatively favorable. Up to now couple years, major care firms have been ripe targets for acquisition.
Lots of Cano’s rival firms have been lately acquired for billions of {dollars}. For instance, Amazon acquired One Medical for almost $4 billion in 2022. Final 12 months, Walgreens‘ VillageMD purchased Summit Well being for almost $9 billion, and CVS acquired Oak Avenue Well being for $10.6 billion.
Worth-based care major care firms, akin to these talked about above, have confirmed that they’re in a position to do properly amidst unsure financial situations, Forman famous. Cano’s give attention to getting massive shortly was what accelerated its downfall, he mentioned.
Anu Sharma, CEO of maternity-focused startup Millie Clinic, agreed with Forman.
“The corporate raced to launch new markets and unrelated service traces — all of which take capital and time to mature,” she remarked.
She added that the Cano’s core Medicare Benefit enterprise “imploded” after CMS cracked down on danger adjustment coding loopholes — and that this compelled “an inevitable reckoning.”
In her view, Cano serves as one more reminder that care mannequin sturdiness and disciplined market choice are the keys to profitable in healthcare.
Photograph: bestdesigns, Getty Pictures
