Lancaster Pollard helps health care, senior living, affordable housing and private education organizations expand and improve their services by providing financial advice and financing solutions. Lancaster Pollard’s services enable hospitals, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, rural housing properties and private schools to develop the financial plans and secure the funding necessary to continue to serve their communities and lets them focus on what’s truly important –their residents, their patients, and their students.
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Home > News > Press Archive > 2-15-06 Unity HealthCare

Hospital funds $18.5 million in new services, renovations
COLUMBUS, Ohio (Feb. 17, 2006) – A nonprofit Iowa health system will renovate its hospital campus and add services with funding that incorporated important local bank relationships.

Unity HealthCare in Muscatine this week accessed $14.5 million in variable-rate, tax-exempt bonds, which it will combine with a $4 million bond issuance placed with two local banks in December. It will use the new debt to overhaul the surgical center, expand radiology and laboratory space, reconfigure the lobby and access roads, and add a new electronic patient data system. The information technology improvements combined with a renovated physicians clinic and surgical center will provide Unity an opportunity to add additional services that residents are currently leaving the county to obtain.

Lancaster Pollard structured both bond issuances. The investment banking firm’s detailed credit assessment of the Unity HealthCare’s financial strength helped acquire an “AA/A-1+” letter of credit for a lower interest rate. A preliminary interest rate hedge reduces interest rate exposure.

"Unity wanted to access investment-grade ratings while reinforcing its relationships with local banks,"  said Bill Wilson, senior vice president of the firm. "Lancaster Pollard tailored a solution that combined a local bank private placement with a public bond issue, and Unity's initial interest rate for the financing was below 5 percent."

The Unity HealthCare system was created in 1999 out of existing health care facilities. Its 70-bed hospital was built in 1953, and the last addition was in 1979. The hospital and community have a strong record of long-term strategies to provide services, attract physicians and remain financially strong.

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