© 2013 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden
Senior Writer for The Texas Lawbook
(June 2) – The Episcopal Diocese of Texas on Friday completed its transfer of St. Luke’s Health System to Catholic Health Initiatives, the nation’s third largest faith-based healthcare institution.
The hospitals involved in the transaction include the Texas Medical Center campus in Houston, as well as suburban hospitals in The Woodlands, Sugar Land, Pasadena and The Vintage.
As part of the agreement, CHI will contribute more than $1 billion to create a new Episcopal Health Foundation, which will focus on the unmet health needs of the area’s underserved population. In addition, CHI committed an additional $1 billion for future investment in the health system.
The deal also calls for CHI to grow and enhance St. Luke’s significant affiliations with Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Heart® Institute, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, Texas Children’s Hospital and MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Vinson & Elkins, led by Houston mergers & acquisitions partners Jeff Floyd and Steve Gill, represented St. Luke’s.
Floyd says that this transaction’s fundamental purpose was to provide healthcare to the people of Southeast Texas.
“St. Luke’s will now move forward with a strong partner who has committed to fund significant expenditures to enhance and grow the St. Luke’s System, including the replacement or refurbishment of the flagship hospital in the heart of the Texas Medical Center,” he says.
Gill says the agreement allows the Diocese to “reorient the focus of its healing ministry from acute care to preventive and primary health care services, with particular emphasis on the poor and underserved.”
“The new Episcopal Health Foundation that was established as part of this transaction will instantly become one of the top five largest healthcare-focused foundations in the United States and will help fill a huge care vacuum in Houston,” says Gill.
CHI was represented by its general counsel, Mitch Melfi, as well as its outside counsel Polsinelli Shughart.
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