Fitch Rates Houston Healthcare Revenue Anticipation Ctfs, Georgia, Series 2007 'A+'.NEW YORK New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of -- Fitch Ratings Fitch Ratings An international rating agency for financial institutions, insurance companies, and corporate, sovereign, and municipal debt. Fitch Ratings has headquarters in New York and London and is wholly owned by FIMALAC of Paris. assigns a long-term rating of 'A+' to the $70.6 million Hospital Authority of Houston County Houston County is the name of five counties in the United States:
Interest that is not immediately expensed, but rather is considered as an asset and is then amortized through the income statement over time. In the context of project financing, interest that is paid by additional borrowing. and pay costs of issuance. The bonds will be issued as fixed-rate, unenhanced certificates and price the week of August 6 via negotiation by Wachovia Securities Wachovia Securities, located in Richmond, Virginia (soon to be moved to St. Louis), is the third largest brokerage firm in the United States as of 2006 with $689 billion retail client assets under management. It is a subsidiary of Wachovia Corporation. . The Rating Outlook is Stable. The 'A+' rating is supported by the system's strong operating trends that exceed Fitch's 'A' medians, solid liquidity coupled with moderate debt ratios, the leading market share in the service area and strong population growth. Based on fiscal 2007 (ending February 28) financial statements, HH earned $14.6 million from operations (7.3% operating margin Operating Margin A ratio used to measure a company's pricing strategy and operating efficiency. Calculated by: ) and $22.6 million in excess income (10.9% excess margin). With pro forma As a matter of form or for the sake of form. Used to describe accounting, financial, and other statements or conclusions based upon assumed or anticipated facts. The phrase pro forma maximum annual debt service (MADS) of $4.8 million, coverage was strong at 5.6 times (x) in fiscal 2007 and represents only 2.7% of fiscal 2007 total revenues. Pro forma debt to capitalization remains manageable at 33.6% at fiscal year end 2007. HH's liquidity is strong with 228 days cash on hand, a 124% cash-to-debt ratio and a 17.5 cushion ratio, assuming issuance of the new debt, all of which compare favorably to Fitch medians for the category of 188 days, 111% and 14.9, respectively. For the three-month period ending May 31, 2007, HH earned $2.9 million from operations (6.3% operating margin) and $6.7 million on the bottom line (13.6% excess margin). HH has been the dominant provider in its primary service area over the past several years with a 70% market share. Its closest competitor, Medical Center of Central Georgia The Medical Center of Central Georgia (MCCG) is a 637-bed hospital located in Macon, Georgia. MCCG is the second largest hospital in Georgia. MCCG is a teaching hospital affiliated with Mercer University Medical School and Level I trauma center. , where HH refers most of its tertiary cases, has a 21% market share, followed by Coliseum Medical Centers with a 7% market share. Primary credit concerns are the potential for declines in profitability associated with HH's evolutionary expansion into a regional referral network in response to strong population growth, high average age of plant and relatively high Medicaid load. Supported by strong growth in population in its primary service area of Houston and Peach Counties, which has seen a 13.9% increase in population between 2000 and 2005, Houston Healthcare has undergone several expansion and renovation projects since its establishment in 1960. The current campus expansion project, which will add a new patient tower to Houston Medical Center, will add additional capacity for both inpatients and observation patients, provide additional education and meeting space, provide a central energy plant, add 230 parking spaces, and add additional support space. Fitch views the overall strategic plan favorably as management tries to meet the challenges of a rapidly growing service area. However, adding additional capacity is only one of the challenges facing Houston Healthcare, and Fitch believes that continued enhancement of information technology to meet quality and efficiency goals will be crucial to the system's continued success. Medicaid has averaged 10% of revenues for the past five years while self-pay and other account for 8% of gross revenues. Although these three categories account for the majority of the hospital's bad debt, profitability has remained strong. Houston Healthcare is a regional referral network providing primary, secondary and selected tertiary level services in Warner Robins, Georgia Warner Robins is the 9th largest city in Georgia, located in Houston County, Georgia and Peach County. The city is in the Macon metropolitan area. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 48,804. . Houston Healthcare consists of Houston Medical Center, Perry Hospital, and the Houston Heart Institute, and operates a total of 225 beds. Total revenue in fiscal 2007 was $200.1 million. HH will covenant to disclose both annual audited financial statements and quarterly financial statements to the nationally recognized municipal security information repositories An information repository is an easy to deploy secondary tier of data storage that can comprise multiple, networked data storage technologies running on diverse operating systems, where data that no longer needs to be in primary storage is protected, classified according to captured (NRMSIRs), including a balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement and management discussion and analysis. Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use Terms of Use are rules set up by the owner of an intellectual property or service to govern how they may be legally used. In many cases, terms of service are used as a contractual agreement between a company and users of a service they provide. of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance and other relevant policies and procedures Policies and Procedures are a set of documents that describe an organization's policies for operation and the procedures necessary to fulfill the policies. They are often initiated because of some external requirement, such as environmental compliance or other governmental are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site. |
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