Community Health Systems' board has rejected 10 local doctors' $2.4 billion offer for Lutheran Health Network, saying today the amount undervalues the network by at least $1 billion.
The doctors formed Fort Wayne Physicians LLC and approached CHS about a sale to a private equity firm or other investors in November, according to a CHS timeline.
Since then, according to CHS, the doctors have:
* Refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement;
* Failed to submit a written offer for evaluation; and
* Demanded that CHS pay their legal and financial adviser fees.
Meanwhile, the doctors haven't specified whether they wanted to buy all of Lutheran's network or just the Fort Wayne assets, or how a deal would be structured.
"The physicians have failed to satisfy any reasonable criteria of a legitimate offer," CHS officials said today in a statement.
The news comes as an increasingly vocal local group, which includes elected officials, is speaking up publicly about the desire to keep Lutheran network's annual profits in the community rather than sending them to the Franklin, Tennessee-based parent company.
Just one week after CEO Brian Bauer announced that CHS is investing half a billion dollars in the network during the next five to six years, an unknown number of disgruntled workers planned a rally for Saturday. About 150 people attended the gathering in a Lutheran Hospital parking lot.