Kindred Healthcare announces plans to acquire St. Louis hospital

Kindred Healthcare, Inc. (the “Company” or “Kindred”) (NYSE:KND) today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire the operations of Mercy Continuing Care Hospital (“Mercy”), a 54-bed transitional care hospital (licensed as a long-term acute care hospital) located in St. Louis, Missouri, from SJMDHS, LCC, a partnership between Mercy and CHRISTUS Continuing Care. Kindred expects to complete the transaction in the third quarter of 2013, pending regulatory and other approvals. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Kindred has signed a lease with Mercy to relocate the operations from the current location to Mercy Hospital St. Louis, an 80-acre, 979-bed healthcare campus that contains a heart and vascular hospital, a cancer center, a comprehensive children’s hospital, a surgery center and a skilled nursing center. Kindred expects to complete the relocation in the third quarter of 2013.

In the St. Louis market, Kindred currently operates two transitional care hospitals, one inpatient rehabilitation hospital and, through its RehabCare division, two hospital-based acute rehabilitation units.

“Expanding our hospital services in St. Louis allows us to continue growing our continuum of post-acute services, enabling us to better Continue the Care for our patients throughout a post-acute episode,” said Paul J. Diaz, Kindred’s Chief Executive Officer. “We are excited that we continue to have a robust pipeline of selective opportunities to expand our continuum of services in our Integrated Care Markets that benefits our patients and our shareholders.”