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TWST: Would you mind providing our readers with an overview of LifePoint
Hospitals?
Mr. Fleetwood: Not at all. LifePoint Hospitals is a company that spun
out as a tax-free spin from Columbia/HCA in May 1999. We were structured
as a small, non-urban hospital company and, actually within the
Columbia/HCA system, we had the 20 most irrelevant assets. When I say
irrelevant, I mean to a very large company. They had been, if you will,
under-managed. They had been part of a different corporate structure
that was focused on their key assets. Within the company, they were not
focusing on these individual assets. Columbia was a very capital-wealthy
company, and had invested a lot in these hospitals. They were in great
shape equipment-wise and physical plant-wise. That wasn't an issue, but
they hadn't been focused on the individual needs of these hospitals. We
were operating as a separate entity within Columbia since January of
1998, so we had about 15 months to really position this organization to
spin out. We positioned our facilities and our assets well to be a
separate company. Since then, we've been able to execute an operating
strategy that was developed prior to our spin. We focus on five core
values: first, delivering high quality patient care; second, creating
excellent workplaces for our employees; third, supporting our
physicians, recognizing that they are substantive customers of ours;
fourth, providing community value. These are nothing but a collection of
community hospitals that happen to have a common ownership structure and
common management. Fifth and finally is being fiscally responsible in
the way each asset operates. We've been able to execute that. We have
grown our business quite significantly. We've focused on the community
piece of it, determined that out-migration was a significant problem for
us. That was our competitor. We have recruited a significant number of
physicians and have added services. We've been able to grow our volume
at 150 basis points ahead of the acute care industry. We've been able to
grow our margin substantially above that. The company has performed
extremely well since being spun off; we feel very good about where we
are today. And, more importantly, we feel great about our future.
Tickers included in this excerpt: LPNT
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