Our healthcare team recently launched a publication series highlighting the global impact of COVID-19 on healthcare transactions. Around the globe, the healthcare industry has faced similar issues from the unprecedented pandemic, prioritizing their operational response to COVID-19. Now, as countries begin to reopen, healthcare entities may refocus on planning for long-term transformation of their business models. In this series, we will explore how the pandemic impacted healthcare transactions in specific regions and what we can expect in a post-pandemic world.
We kicked off our first edition with a focus on the United States. While 2020 was a sluggish year for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) among hospitals and health systems as they contended with a liquidity crunch due to the lack of elective procedures, and at the same time confronted higher lab, supply, and personal protective equipment costs and relentless demands on hospital staff to respond to COVID-19, 2021 has shown renewed vigor and is poised for considerable transactional activity. In this edition, we discuss COVID-19’s impact on M&A and a return to normalcy, antitrust enforcement trends, and the anticipated uptick in bankruptcy filings.