$37M acquisition of EthosPartners includes Mitchell, Plankinton offices

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The local EthosPartners office, shown here at 1801 N. Main St. in Mitchell, will not be adversely affected by Navigant’s acquisition of the company, officials said Monday. (Melanie Brandert/Republic Photo)

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Area operations of EthosPartners will not be adversely affected by Chicago-based Navigant acquiring the Atlanta-based company on Monday, officials said.

EthosPartners, whose employees in Mitchell and Plankinton total 85, works with hospitals, health systems and physician groups to assess strategic, operational and financial challenges and creates solutions to help clients increase profitability.

Julie Boisen, one of the owners who resides in Plankinton, said no layoffs will occur at either site and both locations will remain. Those in leadership positions will stay in them.

Boisen anticipates significant growth as EthosPartners comes under the Navigant umbrella. The merger allows it to work with a lot of large, growing health-care organizations nationwide.

“This is an opportunity for us to have access to more clients,” she said. “We will be working aggressively to establish ourselves.”

EthosPartners includes 180 professionals, 85 in South Dakota. Boisen will be among eight who will join Navigant as managing directors.

Bob Bergstrom, who served as revenue enhancement unit division leader in Mitchell, will take a director position with Navigant, Boisen said.

Navigant describes itself as “a specialized independent consulting firm providing dispute, financial, regulatory and operational advisory services to government agencies, legal counsel and large companies facing the impacts of uncertainty, risk, distress and significant change.”

Under the terms of the asset purchase agreement, Navigant paid a total of $37 million, consisting of $28 million in cash, $2 million in restricted Navigant stock and $7 million of deferred cash payments. In addition, EthosPartners can earn up to $8 mil- lion of additional payments based on the future performance of the business.

EthosPartners’ physicianfocused experience in practice and revenue cycle management, business intelligence and strategic consulting services is a strong complement to Navigant’s healthcare provider expertise, according to Navigant.

Thus, the combination of both companies is thought to enhance and broaden the solutions that Navigant can offer to its clients.

Health systems are exploring strategies to add physicians as partners in care delivery to compete in the rapidly changing health-care market, said William Goodyear, Navigant chairman and chief executive officer.

Dave Zito, managing director and Navigant Healthcare Practice leader, said hospitals, health systems and physician practices need to prepare for lower reimbursements from Medicare, Medicaid and commercial payers, yet build a delivery capability that can accept innovative payment techniques tied to better quality.

“By joining forces with EthosPartners, we are creating a one-of-a-kind consulting group that can help clients survive in today’s competitive market.”

Alex Hunter, EthosPartners president and chief executive officer, said the unity of EthosPartners’ physician expertise with Navigant’s health-care solutions makes the expanded company the only one to combine hospitalphysician strategy and integration expertise with practice management and operational execution that can achieve performance improvement targets.

The larger Navigant will expand to serve more healthcare systems, hospitals and physician groups, Boisen said.

One of the long-term goals will be to expand the workforce, she said. But the extent of that growth hasn’t been discussed yet.

Bryan Hisel, Mitchell Area Development Corporation executive director, said Navigant is a publicly traded company with a large resource base and tremendous access to capital.

“It is a growth industry and we’d like to be part of that growth,” he said.

Hisel said he would like to speak with company officials about their growth plans.

He noted that EthosPartners has been a nice addition to the office industries in Mitchell and charted a steady course of growth and addition of employees.

“They’ve had a good reputation,” Hisel said. “There is no reason not to be optimistic that Plankinton and Mitchell aren’t part of their future.”

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