IPC The Hospitalist Company in North Hollywood is going public. On Sept. 4 it announced that it filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with a proposed initial public offering of its common stock. Founded by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Adam Singer in 1995, IPC functions to improve the quality of inpatient care and the satisfaction of medical and nursing staff at hospitals. It also provides billing and collections, provider recruitment, marketing, training and education services. A representative for IPC declined to comment about the company’s decision to go public because it is now in its quiet period. However, Dr. James V. Luck Jr., a professor in the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as Chief Executive Officer and President and Medical Director of Orthopaedic Hospital, said that it appears as if IPC has been heading in the direction of going public since its inception. “It has a little venture capital funding and that usually indicates an organization that will eventually go public,” Luck said. Dr. Russell Nelson, founder and President of the Nelson Spine Institute, believes that the innovativeness of the services IPC provides has played a role in the company’s success. “What you have to realize is that the Hospitalist is providing a newer service to the hospital that really hasn’t been around for years,” he said. “It’s a new service type company; that’s why it’s so popular. It’s a new niche in medicine that has risen as these private hospitals have to cover sick people with doctors who are stretched so thin they have to cover their patients and their practices.” Asked about the significance of IPC going public, Luck said that it is conceivable that the move will have very little impact. “The organization itself provides management services, but they also own and operate some services.” Specifically, IPC owns or provides management services to hospitalist practices operating in more than 300 facilities across 16 states. Luck has some concerns about IPC going public. “Publicly held companies, in order to be successful, need to have constantly improving financial performance and marketability,” he said. “Stockholders don’t want to purchase stocks for organizations that aren’t on the way up and aren’t advancing. My concern relates to the fact that health care really is an altruistic calling. I’m concerned about any health care organization whose financial performance is the bottom line.” Nelson had a different take, however. “Whoever owns the company privately has been making a profit all along,” he said. “I wouldn’t suspect it would change the quality of the health care.” Thus far, the registration statement IPC has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to become effective. Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC and Jefferies & Company Inc. will act as joint book-running managers and Wachovia Capital Markets LLC and William Blair & Company L.L.C. will be co-managers. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering, made by means of a prospectus, have not been determined.
