Health Care M&A Activity Hits 3-year Low . . . Or Not

Becker's Hospital Review has a story (Aug. 9) about a KPMG report that describes a three-year decline in merger-and-acquisition activity in the health care sector. Apart from a couple of large deals in May (CVS Health's closing on Oak Street Health for $10.6 billion) and June (UnitedHealth Group's $3.3 billion agreement to take over Amedisys), second-quarter M&A activity was the lowest since the same quarter in 2020. (Health consultants Kaufman Hall paint a rosier picture of M&A activity in Q2 2023.)

I don't know how this compares to M&A activity in other parts of the economy, but the reasons cited by KPMG sound pretty generically applicable throughout the economy:

"Ongoing pressures could keep second-half M&A near first-half levels," Kristin Pothier, leader of healthcare and life sciences for KPMG and principal of deal advisory, said. "Additional interest-rate hikes even amid an economic downturn, political divisions in advance of a presidential election year, and uncertainty about the valuations of potential acquisition targets may combine to postpone a rebound in deal making. But we expect at least some of those headwinds to moderate toward the end of the year, and that could begin to release long-pent-up demand." 

To this list I would add recent M&A policy revisions from the FTC & DOJ, making Hart-Scott-Rodino review more of a toss-up than the market is used to. (See posts here and here.)