America’s largest Catholic hospital system, Ascension, has quietly built out a strikingly unusual private equity operation worth more than $1 billion, STAT reports.
The investigation reveals how far a wealthy, religious, tax-exempt health system can migrate toward behaving like a Wall Street firm — and how little such a system has to disclose about whether or how its profits are benefiting patients.
Ascension, a more than 140-hospital behemoth based in St. Louis, Mo., has used its wealth to create a sophisticated investment strategy including a partnership with private equity firm TowerBrook Capital Partners. While many other nonprofit hospitals have dabbled in private equity investing, Ascension’s strategy is more formalized and more expansive than what others have pursued so far. Read more.
