Starr Investment close to buying US healthcare services firm MultiPlan for $4.4 bn

A group led by Starr Investment Holdings is close to finalising a deal to buy US transaction-based healthcare cost management company MultiPlan Inc from its private-equity owners for about $4.4 billion, The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Starr Investment, an affiliate of insurance and investments conglomerate C V Starr & Co., has teamed up with Swiss investment firm Partners Group to buy MultiPlan from its private equity owners BC Partners and Silver Lake Partners.

BC Partners and Silver Lake had acquired MultiPlan in 2010 from The Carlyle Group and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe for $3.1 billion.

Founded in 1980 as a New York hospital network, MultiPlan is the most comprehensive provider of healthcare cost management solutions in the US.

MultiPlan provides transaction-based solutions to insurers, health plan administrators, and other payers of healthcare services, as well as to national network of medical providers, which includes over 5,000 hospitals, 115,000 ancillary care facilities and 900,000 healthcare providers in the US.

An estimated 68 million consumers access its network products and process 40 million claims each year.

Its clients include large and mid-sized insurers, third party administrators, self-funded plans, health maintenance organisations and other entities that pay claims on behalf of health plans.