UnitedHealth Agrees to Buy Payments Firm Equian for $3.2 Billion
By Cara Lombardo
The Wall Street Journal
Photo: Jim Mone/Associated Press
UnitedHealth Group Inc. UNH -1.00% has agreed to buy health-care payments firm Equian LLC from its private-equity owner for about $3.2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
Equian, owned by New Mountain Capital, offers payment-processing services for health-care companies and insurers and touts an ability to reduce mistakes that cause overpayment.
It is likely that UnitedHealth would merge Equian into its Optum health-services arm, a rapidly growing part of its business that caters to insurers, hospitals and other health-care companies. Equian would add to its array of offerings and help Optum branch out beyond health care, since Equian has other types of insurers as clients as well.
UnitedHealth, with a market value of roughly $235 billion, is the parent of the largest U.S. health insurer, UnitedHealthcare. The company is known as a prolific acquirer. Health care has been the second-most active sector in mergers and acquisitions this year after technology, with more than $260 billion of deals announced so far, according to Dealogic.
Equian’s platform handles more than $500 billion in health-care claims a year and serves nine of the 10 largest health-care payers, according to New Mountain. The company is based in Indianapolis. Among other services, it analyzes claims both before and after they are paid, seeking to find inappropriate or unnecessary bills and blocking or recovering overpayments.
Equian was the result of a merger between its predecessor company and Trover Solutions Inc. after both were acquired by New Mountain in 2015. New Mountain paid $225 million for Equian’s predecessor.
The sale to UnitedHealth is the culmination of a months long auction process.