These references and the extracts describe
Sun Healthcare and Andrew Turner's recent activities
Former Sun Healthcare CEO consulting for
Atlanta company
The Associated Press State & Local Wire
Modern Healthcare September 6, 2000
Andrew Turner, who in July left the Albuquerque-based company he founded, has begun working for Ballantrae Healthcare, Ballantrae spokeswoman Sharon Seitam said.According to a memo from Ballantrae president Murry Gunty obtained by the Albuquerque Journal, Turner "will play an active role in evaluating our operations and suggesting modifications that can improve our quality of care, as well as our level of efficiency."
----------------------------
Under the terms of a settlement with Turner, he gave up compensation promised under his employment contract and other agreements in exchange for a release to pursue other business interests in the health care industry.
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In its annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, Sun said its losses for 1999 totaled $1.09 billion, or $18.62 a share. Sun said 1999 revenues were $2.53 billion compared with $3.09 billion in 1998, a decrease it blamed partly on changes in Medicare reimbursements.Sun recently transferred operation of about 15 nursing homes to Ballantrae, which owns a total of 30 homes in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Missouri.
"Over half of Ballantrae's employees were formerly part of the Sun organization, so many of you have worked with Mr. Turner in the past," Gunty's memo to employees said.
Sun's journey through bankruptcy
Albuquerque Journal September 14, 2000
By Winthrop Quigley Journal Staff Writer
Nursing Home Operator Moving to City
September 30, 2000
[also published in the Albuquerque Journal under HEADLINE: Home
Operator Moving to City, Sun's Former CEO Consultant for
Firm]
<http://www.abqjournal.com/biz/138663biz09-30-00.htm>
By Winthrop Quigley Journal Staff Writer
Ballantrae Healthcare, the Atlanta-based nursing home operator that has retained former Sun Healthcare Group CEO Andrew L. Turner as a consultant, will move its headquarters to Albuquerque in November, according to Ballantrae employees.
----------------------
Ballantrae operates about 30 nursing homes, including 15 formerly operated by Sun.Sun, which entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October 1999, has transferred operations of at least 60 under-performing nursing homes to other firms and expects to transfer as many as 80 more.
--------------------
Turner had initiated an auction to sell his 24-acre North Valley equestrian property but abruptly canceled it Sept. 21. An official of the auction firm retained to handle the sale said at the time Turner's wife, Nora, was not comfortable with the auction process.
Sun Healthcare founder accused of
disloyalty
The Associated Press State & Local Wire October 3,
2000
Sun Healthcare Group has accused its founder and former chairman of disloyalty and conspiracy in luring away employees to form a new company.Sun has asked a federal bankruptcy judge in Delaware to prevent Andrew Turner from using some former Sun employees to staff his new therapeutic services company, EduraCare LLC.
Sun wants the judge to order Turner and other ex-Sun employees, including a Connecticut man, to return compensation they earned as Sun employees at the time they were forming EuduraCare.
----------------------
Sun contends that while Turner was the company's chairman and chief executive officer, he conspired with executives of SunDance Rehabilitation Corp., a Sun subsidiary, to hire away SunDance employees with knowledge of SunDance customers and prospective customers to create EnduraCare.
---------------------
Sun alleges the four executives began forming EnduraCare long before they resigned from Sun and SunDance and used confidential SunDance business information to lure employees to EnduraCare, a Texas company.
-----------------------------
Sun alleges EnduraCare recruited SunDance employees who had proprietary knowledge of existing and potential contracts SunDance held with customers.
Ballantrae Drafting Expansion
Albuquerque Journal October 4, 2000, Wednesday
CEO Says 75-100 Homes in PlansThe Atlanta nursing-home operator that is relocating its corporate headquarters to Albuquerque intends to more than double its business over the next two years, CEO Murry Gunty said.
-----------------------------------
Gunty, who lives in New York, described himself as an investor with interests in insurance, technology and real estate. He said he formed Ballantrae with investments from private individuals and one institutional investor, whom he declined to name."My role in day-to-day operations is limited," he said. Former Sun Healthcare executive Robin Underhill is Ballantrae's chief operating officer and manages the company.
--------------------
Gunty hopes Turner will eventually agree to lead Ballantrae.
Financial health of nursing home operator
improving
The Associated Press State & Local Wire November 3, 2000,
Friday, BC cycle
The net losses at Sun Healthcare Group have decreased, according to the company's delayed second-quarter filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Losses as of June 30 totaled $197.1 million, or 54 cents per diluted share, compared with a loss of $701.74 million, or $10.06 per diluted share, in the same quarter last year, the Albuquerque-based nursing home operator reported.
Former Sun CEO freed to hire away
staff
Albuquerque Tribune November 10, 2000, Friday
U.S. Bankruptcy Court denied a preliminary motion by Albuquerque-based Sun Healthcare Group Inc. seeking to prevent a company formed by former Sun Chief Executive Officer Andrew Turner from recruiting staff and customers from a Sun subsidiary, Turner said.
-------------------------
Turner said his attorneys have filed a counterclaim against Sun on his behalf alleging Sun is in contempt of court and seeking unspecified damages."My allegation is that their complaint violated the exit agreement," Turner said. "When I left my post as CEO of Sun, we entered into a legal exit agreement that the judge approved. That's when I left the company.
"Two weeks later, Sun was in her courtroom suing my management team and my new company. What I'm contending is that the case had no merit and was in contempt of the judge because in no way did any of us violate any terms of the exit agreement."
----------------------
"It's unfortunate that the company I founded in my home and built to New Mexico's largest company would turn around and file a lawsuit to impede me from acting on the exit agreement I legally entered into when I agreed voluntarily to leave my post as CEO," Turner said.
Sun Healthcare Announces Management for
Rehabilitation Subsidiary
PR Newswire December 8, 2000, Friday
New management has been selected to lead SunDance Rehabilitation Corporation, a subsidiary of Sun Healthcare Group, Inc. SunDance is one of the nation's leading contract therapy companies and employs physical, occupational and speech therapists in more than 1200 long-term care facilities.
Alpha makes deal on debt to Sun Healthcare
Group
AAP NEWSFEED December 19, 2000, Tuesday
MELBOURNE, Dec 19 AAP - Alpha Healthcare Ltd has reached an agreement with major shareholder Sun Healthcare Group over repayment of an outstanding short term debt facility.The agreement set out a structured repayment arrangement of $7.5 million during the period to 31 July 2001.
----------------------------
"At the conclusion of this debt repayment agreement with Sun in July 2001, Alpha will be debt free with the exception of the Westmead Private Hospital project and normal leasing arrangements."
---------------------------
Alpha shares were one cent firmer at 32 cents at 1047 AEDT.
COMMENT:- This is a man who founded a company, which has been accused of misinforming and neglecting elderly citizens. There is much to suggest that they were not cared for as they should have been.
Obligation to the
elderly
Albuquerque Tribune January 22, 2001
Since leaving Sun Healthcare, former CEO Andrew Turner has largely concentrated his efforts on building companies that provide services to senior citizensA business mind never remains still.
In the six months since Andrew Turner resigned as CEO of Sun Healthcare Group Inc. the nursing-home chain that became New Mexico's largest company he has started three new businesses, become chairman of a fourth and is a major investor in all of them. He buys and sells horses and is pursuing several other business opportunities in the United States and abroad.
"I could have retired, but chose not to," Turner said. "I wanted to continue to work. I had the energy and I had the desire. My work is important to me. I feel an obligation to continue working with the elderly."
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Turner's model much copied in the long-term care industry spurred profits and growth."We were the most profitable chain in the United States.
-----------------------------------
He didn't stray far from the business he knew well. But he took a different approach."I have one skill," he said. "I know how to take care of the elderly. I've been doing it my whole life. I don't believe in diversification."
-------------------------------
Turner reversed the Sun model, going to the "silo" approach to business instead of the umbrella. Rather than bring subsidiaries under a single corporation, he wanted to get involved in different, unrelated companies in the same industry."There are several elements of treating geriatric patients who are institutionalized," he said. "I've taken the elements and isolated them in different businesses."
------------------------
"Since leaving Sun, I've been marching down the road to becoming chairman or a major investor in separate companies in each of the four arenas," he said.In September, Turner founded EnduraCare LLC, a Dallas-based provider of physical, occupational and speech therapy on contract to patients in nursing homes. He hired three executives David Kneiss, Gary McGuire and Tom Mack away from SunDance to run the company. Turner had worked with Kneiss and McGuire for 20 years in four different companies.
-------------------------
EnduraCare has more than 50 contracts for provision of services and about 150 employees. The company anticipates 2001 revenues of $10 million, Turner said."We see explosive growth for EnduraCare," said Turner, who is chairman of the board and the major investor. "We're very optimistic."
Turner next got involved in Ballantrae Healthcare LLC, a nursing home operator. The company was founded in October 1999 in Atlanta and is owned by a consortium of investors, mostly from New York and Chicago.
The company was losing money and asked Turner to consult.
He agreed, but wanted the corporate headquarters moved to Albuquerque. They agreed.
-------------------
He hired Alan Zampini, president of Sun subsidiary SunBridge Healthcare Corp., to become chief executive officer.
-------------------------------
"In the month of January, we expect to make our first profit," Turner said. "Our plan is to end 2001 with 50 homes."On Feb. 1, Turner will open the doors of Code Blue Staffing Solutions LLC, Turner is founder and sole owner as well as chairman of the board.
Code Blue, which will provide nurses and therapists, will have six employees in Albuquerque and open branch offices in Phoenix and San Francisco within the first 30 days, Turner said.
-----------------------
"I hope Code Blue will become a nationwide concern with a significant market share," Turner said.Turner moved Sun Healthcare into overseas markets, primarily Great Britain, and enjoys doing business in other countries.
"The patients are the same. I've been in nursing homes from Singapore to Abu Dhabi, and when you walk down the corridor, the patient population is exactly the same as in Albuquerque," Turner said. "I know how to treat them."
Turner, who offered to buy Sun's overseas holdings but couldn't come to terms, for "respectful." Kavod owns one Tel Aviv nursing home, a former asset of Sun, and plans to acquire more homes throughout Israel.
Turner owns 25 percent of the equity, an Israeli group owns 50 percent and another partner owns 25 percent. Turner is on the board of directors.
He said he likely will get into the nursing home business in Great Britain this year, and is pursuing other overseas deals.
------------------------
He said financing for his new ventures has come from The Bank of Albuquerque. "They've been very supportive about my business activity," he said. "They are the reason things have gotten off the ground so quickly."Turner says he won't limit himself to involvements in just the four long-term care arenas.
"I'm optimistic I will be involved in a variety of companies similar to the ones I've gotten off the ground," he said. "I hope to have several others started in a year to two years hence."
He sits on the boards of two publicly traded, Los Angeles-based companies, Watson Pharmaceuticals and Sports Clubs/L.A. He also owns a real estate entity with properties nationwide.
---------------------------
"I'm happy with the way things turned out. It is my intention to continue to be actively involved in businesses, primarily those rendering health-care services to the frail elderly, in an investor and board capacity," he said. "I consider my health-care work to be my obligation and my mission by comparison to just viewing it as a profit-making enterprise."As the years go by, there is no end in sight. I will pursue the mission until I die."
COMMENT:- One wonders what all of the deal in the next article involves and whether Turner has a finger in the pie. It is no secret that he wanted to take over Sun's international operations.
Sun Healthcare selling UK operations
The Associated Press State & Local Wire January 31,
2001
A federal bankruptcy court approved the sale of Sun Healthcare Group's operations in the United Kingdom for $1 to a holding company formed by a group of Sun managers.According to Sun petitions filed in bankruptcy court in Delaware, the United Kingdom operations will be sold to KW Holdings Limited based in England. It was formed by Warren McInteer, who has been head of Sun's European operations; Kent Phippen, an officer in the European operations; and other Sun managers.
The company's most recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show the company operates 147 patient care facilities in the United Kingdom with 8,326 licensed beds.
With the transfer, Albuquerque-based Sun also transfers to the buyer a potential liability it estimates could be as much as $299 million, said Peter A. Chapman, publisher of Sun Healthcare Bankruptcy News.
Sun has wanted to sell the United Kingdom operations so it could focus on core businesses in the United States. The company last year contracted with an investment banking firm to sell its overseas businesses, and that firm is continuing to seek a buyer for Sun's German operations.
KW Holdings aoso will pay Sun for up 3.2 million British pounds - worth $4.7 million at Tuesday's exchange rate - should KW Holdings go bankrupt, exceed profit projections or sell the United Kingdom assets, according to the court petition.
---------------------------
While Sun's financial statements do not disclose United Kingdom operations separately, the company's international operations lost $19.7 million in the nine months ending Sept. 30, according to SEC documents.
Sun Group cuts 112 jobs
The Associated Press State & Local Wire February 21,
2001
Nursing home giant Sun Healthcare Group is eliminating 112 jobs, including 79 employees in its Albuquerque headquarters, the company announced.
-------------------------------
Sun has shed almost all of its international nursing home operations and has left other businesses, from consulting to medical supplies, as part of a strategy to focus on core holdings.Sun continues to operate 270 nursing and assisted-living homes in Arizona, New Mexico and elsewhere as well as subsidiaries in the rehabilitation, pharmaceutical supply and staffing businesses.
Sun Healthcare Lays Off Workers
HomeCare April 2001
Albuquerque, N.M. Bankrupt Sun Healthcare Group, which recently shed several subsidiaries and its British holdings, has laid off 112 employees, 79 of them at its headquarters.
--------------------------
The company, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October 1999, said in its latest quarterly financial statement that it lost $135.3 million on revenue of $609.5 million for the three months ended Sept. 30, 2000.
ManorCare Hit with Lawsuit Alleging
Systemic Elder Neglect
CASE: Abuse and Neglect Litigation: Swan v. Manor Care of Am.
Nursing Home Litigation Reporter June 4, 2001
COMMENT:- This extract from the article about Manor Care is about another action against Sun Healthcare.
In a similar action, the Hagens Berman firm filed a proposed class action lawsuit in May 1999 on behalf of the proposed lead plaintiff, Karen Minor, against SunRise Healthcare Corp. Minor v. SunRise Healthcare Corp., No. 99-0828C (W.D. Wash.); see Nursing Home LR , June 3, 1999, P. 6.The suit alleges SunRise violated the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 by forcing its nursing staff to work uncompensated overtime in order to properly care for the residents. SunRise denies all allegations in the suit.
In October 1999, the action was stayed following the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in Delaware by Sun Healthcare Corp., the parent company of SunRise.
Minor filed a "class proof of claim" with the bankruptcy court on behalf of the proposed class, and counsel for both parties have since agreed to allow discovery and class certification proceedings to continue in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, according to Stephanie Levin of Hagens Berman in Phoenix.
After the resolution of class certification issues, the proceedings will return to the Delaware bankruptcy court for further disposition with respect to liability and remaining issues, Levin said.
Sun agrees to integrity pact
Modern Healthcare July 30, 2001, Monday
- - - - - they have signed a corporate integrity agreement that, - - - -, requires long-term-care provider Sun to address quality of care. The five-year agreement, which will not be made public until it is approved as part of a bankruptcy reorganization of Sun, also requires the company to better train employees on complying with federal healthcare reimbursement programs, the inspector general's office said.
---------------------------
The Justice Department continues to negotiate a settlement of its charges against Sun, although government officials did not reveal the nature of the allegations against the company.
Lynn nursing home owners plagued with
problems
The Boston Herald August 9, 2001
Sun Healthcare Group Inc. of Albuquerque, N.M., the parent company of Sunbridge Care & Rehabilitation for North Shore, has been plagued with problems not only in the Bay State, but also across the country, including California, Florida and Washington." Sunbridge is among the bottom tier in terms of quality," said Department of Public Health spokesperson Roseanne Pawelec.
Deficiencies in care resulted in state health departments throughout the nation citing 124 of the company's 321 nursing homes.
-----------------------------
The Lynn nursing home has been repeatedly investigated by state authorities for substandard care, officials said.
Sun nursing homes have history of patient
attacks
The Boston Herald August 10, 2001
The troubled company that owns the Lynn nursing home where one resident gouged out the eye of another had hundreds of reported cases of violence last year, making up almost a third of the state's total, according to the state Department of Public Health.More than 350 abuses of residents by other residents in nursing homes owned by Sun Healthcare Group Inc. were reported to the health department last year.
In fact, from 1998 to 2000, resident attacks on each other at Sun facilities have more than quadrupled, going from 81 to 356. And while Sun owns less than seven percent of nursing homes in the state, those homes generated more than 27 percent of the abuses.
Nationwide and Nexion Announce Texas
Master Lease
PR Newswire September 6, 2001, Thursday, 418 words
- - - - entered into a master lease covering seventeen skilled nursing facilities located in Texas that previously were subject to bankruptcy proceedings of Sun Healthcare Group, Inc. and Mariner Post -Acute Network, Inc.
Bringing Discipline (and Scorecards) to
Nursing Homes
New York Times July 7, 2002
In a case brought by California last year against another national chain, the Sun Healthcare Group, a unit of that company pleaded "no contest" to a felony charge and the whole company agreed to improve staffing and oversight.
THE BOTTOM LINE OF CARING: National chains
earn poor inspection reports
The Atlanta Journal and Constitution July 28, 2002
At a Rome home run by SunBridge Healthcare, the administrator did not call police or thoroughly investigate a resident's report that a staff member twice came into her room at night, drew the curtains around her bed, and kissed and fondled her. Inspectors found harm to residents in SunBridge's Georgia homes 68 other times in the last four years.
----------------------------------
SunBridge Healthcare operated six Georgia nursing homes with average daily staffing levels that fell below Medicaid's mandatory minimum for an entire year. Five of the six had operating margins of $300,000 or more.
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Well before Carr's sons died, state inspectors had noted that the Griffin home was understaffed more often than any other home in the state. It could have been fined but ------ like other Georgia homes that maintain low staffing ------ it never was. Instead, the state paid SunBridge tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses as a reward for keeping nursing costs low.That's where Omalee Whitaker's husband, the Rev. William Edward Whitaker, spent his final days.
--------------------------------------
Finally, last fall, she placed him in the Griffin home after he had been hospitalized for pneumonia, hoping he could recover and then return home.Whitaker said she was immediately disappointed. The home was always short--staffed. The same menus were served over and over. Her husband's belongings would disappear. Aides would hurriedly turn and move her husband in his bed without even talking to him. "They made me feel like I brought him to a place to die," she said.
But Omalee said she was stunned at what she saw when the aides came to change her husband one day. As the aides undressed and turned him, Whitaker was shocked to see large, painful bedsores.
"His bottom was raw," she said. "There were patches, blisters as big around as a baseball."
-----------------------------------------
"We are a completely different company than we were a year ago," said William A. Mathies, president of SunBridge since March. Mathies said SunBridge now has quality care at the top of its agenda. Employees from nurse's aides to management staff are being trained, key personnel changes are being made and the company is investing to improve care and upgrade buildings, he said."We believe if you have the right employees that have the right skills, we'll be able to deliver the right patient care," he said.
Chuck Brown, administrator at the Griffin facility for just over a year, doesn't deny that the home had serious problems. But he said it's undergone a major turnaround in the past year, with a completely new management staff, a focus on training and a physical face--lift.
"Progressively, we've gotten better and better and better," Brown said.
---------------------------
"Our new administrator is really good ------ he cares about us and he sits and listens to us," said Marie Stephens, a 72-- year--old who has lived at the Griffin home for six years.
Comment:- Perhaps Sun really has made an effort to change since it emerged from bankruptcy and to provide its residents with good care. This would explain why less than a year after this report it is threatened with bankruptcy. In this it contrasts with Kindred (previously Vencor) which has made no effort to change and is making large profits. The market has its own ways of dealing with those who take money from profits in order to provide care.
The New Math of Old Age
Health & Medicine September 30, 02
Why the nursing home industry's cries of poverty don't add up
-----------------------------
At the root instead were bad business decisions and higher costs-including piling up lots of debt in a campaign of pricey acquisitions. The GAO noted, for example, that Sun Healthcare Group Inc. invested heavily in providing the kind of expensive services that produced big reimbursements under the old system but not in the new.
Sun Hunts Ways To Cut Costs
Albuquerque Journal November 19, 2002
Operations improved at Sun Healthcare Group in the last quarter, but not enough to overcome an unexpected requirement that it reserve $20 million to cover liability claims.Things might get worse next year, when the company could lose $30 million in revenue to "Draconian" cuts in Medicare payments, said Sun CEO Richard K Matros in an interview Monday.
Sun Healthcare Group, Inc. Discloses
Landlord-Asserted Defaults
PR Newswire January 15, 2003
Sun Healthcare Group, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: SUHG) ("Sun") today announced that THCI Company LLC, THCI Mortgage Holding Company LLC, THCI Holding Company LLC and their affiliated entities (collectively, "Care Realty") have delivered notices of termination to various affiliates of Sun (collectively, the "Tenants") seeking to revoke Tenants' right to occupy and operate 32 long-term care and rehabilitation hospital facilities. Those notices of termination are based upon Care Realty's assertion that the Tenants are in default of various leasehold obligations, including the failure to pay rent
Losses at health-care company climbing
Press Release March 2003
Sun Healthcare Group has warned it won't be able to fund its operations if the company doesn't find a way to generate substantial cash flow, and its annual earnings report says it could end up in bankruptcy court again.
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Sun lost $444.3 million before reorganization costs, taxes, discontinued operations and extraordinary items for the entire year. In 2001, it lost $26.2 million.
Sun Losses Climbing Once More
Albuquerque Journal (New Mexico) March 29, 2003
If Sun Healthcare Group doesn't find a way to generate "substantial" cash flow, it won't be able to fund operations, the company warned Friday.A second trip to bankruptcy court is not out of the question, according to Sun's annual earnings report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
------------------------------
The company must improve cash flow by shedding unprofitable nursing homes, getting rent relief from its landlords, reducing the amount of office space it occupies in Albuquerque and selling its large collection of Southwestern art, Sun chairman Richard K. Matros told the Journal in an interview.
One Sun Center gets a second tenant
Albuquerque Journal April 7, 2003
International systems management software firm Altiris Inc. has taken almost 4,000 square feet in One Sun Center.
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The 185,000-square-foot building that was to be Sun Healthcare Group's international headquarters and the adjacent 60,000-square-foot San Francisco building were purchased by real estate investor Gary Goodman and partners last year.
Two nursing homes to get new owner,
settling dispute
The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA) April 26, 2003
Sun Healthcare Group of Irvine, Calif., has agreed to transfer a total of 31 nursing homes to Care Realty or to whatever company Care Realty designates, Sun said this week.
SAFETY, CARE VIOLATIONS WIDESPREAD IN
REGION; STAFFING AND MONEY ARE CRITICAL, BUT TOO OFTEN FALL SHORT
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, Va.) April 27, 2003
Letha Claude says she experienced that firsthand after placing her mother, Maybelle Lassiter, in SunBridge Care and Rehabilitation for Chesapeake, a nursing home on George Washington Highway, in 2000. Lassiter, a mother of five, was only 56.On Oct. 26, 2001, Claude said, she got a phone call from a funeral director asking permission to pick up the body. That's how she found out that her mother had died.
Three months later, two nurses who had worked at SunBridge came to Claude with more news. There had been two hospitalizations that no one had told the family about.
Most disturbing was what they told Claude about her mother's last hospital visit, a month before she died. Nurses there reported finding maggots - the larval stage of flies - embedded in her mouth, according to nurses' notes in her medical records.
"I was shocked," Claude said. "I went to the nursing home and asked them about it, and it was as if they didn't care."
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That home has been cited for 50 violations of government health-care standards over the past three years, three of them serious.An inspection in 2000 found pervasive urine odors in the building, a failure to prevent bedsores, and indications of insufficient staffing. On some night shifts, the inspectors found, one nurse and one aide were trying to care for as many as 60 patients.
The inspectors also found a pattern of residents being subjected to rude remarks, rough handling and possible physical abuse by nurse aides.
Post-acute pain; Modern Healthcare survey
shows mixed results for providers in '02, with end of Medicare add-on
payments among the challenges
Modern Healthcare May 5, 2003
Meanwhile, Sun Healthcare Group, which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2002, saw net losses jump to $437 million in 2002, from $69 million the previous year, and warned investors about possible future financial turmoil. In public documents, the Irvine, Calif.-based company said it has missed debt payments and that it was in default under loan agreements. As part of the company's restructuring efforts, Sun Healthcare stated it may shed half its 215 skilled-nursing facilities
GARCIA TRIES REAL ESTATE
Albuquerque Journal May 5, 2003
Former Economic Development Secretary John Garcia has signed on as a consultant to real estate investor Gary Goodman and his partners to help lease out the 185,000-square-foot One Sun Center.The six-story, gleaming glass-and-steel building in Journal Center is one of several on the 13-acre campus that was owned by nursing home operator Sun Healthcare Group before it filed for Chapter 11 protection three years ago. Goodman bought what was to be the Sun's international headquarters building and an adjacent one last year.
Nursing home operator says it might have
to quit
The Associated Press State & Local Wire May 17,
2003
Sun Healthcare Group is warning that it might not be able to stay in business.The Albuquerque-based nursing home company, which has been shrinking for years, does not have "adequate liquidity or available sources of financing" to meet its obligations and pay liabilities, the company said in its quarterly report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
-----------------------------------
Sun said it had divested itself of 37 skilled nursing facilities between Jan. 1 and April 30. Sun Healthcare may cease operating 43 percent of its 201 long-term care facilities if it cannot restructure its leases and reduce rents, its report said.
oodles of art
Albuquerque Journal May 17, 2003
The art once adorned Sun's luxuriant headquarters, back when the company's nursing-home empire was raking in billions. Now Sun is $186 million in debt, its stock is worth a buck a share and its $2.3 million corporate art collection is just another asset to be sold in a desperate hunt for cash
Sun Healthcare's art was a huge misuse of
assets
Albuquerque Journal (New Mexico) May 22, 2003
The Andrew Turner era at Sun Healthcare Group didn't end three years ago when he resigned from the company he had founded, built into a multibillion health care conglomerate, then left in bankruptcy court.His era truly ended last weekend when the 550-piece $2.3 million art collection he meticulously acquired with investors' money was put up for sale in a meeting room on the Sun campus.
Present chairman Richard K. Matros hated that art collection.
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On the second floor of the Masthead NE building, the visitor walked a hallway lined with American Indian art. During the building's construction, special niches were designed to properly display pieces. While Turner was in charge, workers were told what they could and could not display in their own cubicles and offices so that the Sun esthetic would not be compromised.
------------------------------------
Matros considers it a waste of investors' money.
------------------------------------
The money should have gone into Sun's nursing homes to improve operations and patient care, Matros said in his first Journal interview, in November 2001 when he had taken over Sun.Besides, Matros said, much of the revenue Sun collected came from Medicare and Medicaid. Taxpayers, in other words. It was simply "unacceptable" to spend their money on a palace, Matros said.
The Turner era is over, but a legacy of underperforming assets remains.
"The company was fundamentally flawed in the way it was built to begin with," Matros said earlier this year while discussing Sun's 2002 earnings.
Acquisition
Matros was not exercising 20-20 hindsight. He saw the flaws in Sun's Pac Man strategy of continuous debt-backed acquisition long before Wall Street did.
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Matros says Sun was so busy acquiring, it never operated its businesses properly."Every time an asset was acquired it was mortgaged to the hilt," Matros said. The borrowed money was used to fund more acquisitions.
Sun Selling Its Pharmacy
Albuquerque Journal June 18, 2003
Kentucky-based Omnicare Inc. has agreed to purchase Sun Healthcare Group's pharmaceutical services business, SunScript Pharmacy Corp., for more than $75 million in cash, the companies announced Tuesday.
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Many of SunScript's customers are Sun Healthcare nursing homes, and some of those homes might be closed, making the value of their SunScript contracts uncertain, said Sun chairman Richard K. Matros.
Verdicts : Runaway wheelchair caused fatal
fall
Texas Lawyer June 30, 2003
The estate of a woman who fell when the wheelchair she was in rolled from the sidewalk into a parking lot, causing her to sustain fatal injuries, won $2 million from the nursing home where she lived, Sunbridge Care and Rehabilitation for Linden.
OMNICARE INC. Covington, Kentucky; Buys
Keep This Firm Master Of Its Domain
Investor's Business Daily July 29, 2003
Earlier this month it (Omnicare) paid $90 million for SunScript, the pharmacy services business of Sun Healthcare Group. The New Mexico-based unit adds 43,000 beds in 19 states to Omnicare's client list.
Better Than It Looks?
Albuquerque Journal August 15, 2003
Continuing financial losses at Sun Healthcare Group mask some good news about operations, according to CEO Richard K. Matros.
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Sun once again warned that it does not have "adequate liquidity or available sources of financing to meet our contractual obligations" and settle its liabilities. The filing says the company may have to enter bankruptcy protection if it cannot generate better cash flow.
