Enhabit Shareholders Approve Sale To Kinderhook, Prepares To Delist Stock

Three months after Enhabit Inc. announced that private equity firm Kinderhook Industries had agreed to buy the provider for $1.1 billion, the company’s shareholders have approved the deal.

In a special meeting on Tuesday, the majority of shareholders voted to approve the merger proposal, according to publicly available documents. The deal is expected to close on Friday, subject to closing conditions.

Almost 36,312,000 votes affirmed the deal. Opposing the deal were 18,275 votes, with another 10,917 votes abstaining.

The acquisition will take Enhabit private. It will also provide the company with additional resources and expertise to support investments in people, clinical excellence and innovation – without the short-term pressure of public markets, according to Barb Jacobsmeyer, president and CEO of Enhabit.

Enhabit’s stockholders will receive $13.80 per share in cash as part of the deal, which represents a premium of approximately 24.4% to Enhabit’s closing stock price on Feb. 20, the last full trading day before the deal was announced, and a 33.8% premium to the company’s 60-day volume-weighted average share price for the period ending on Feb. 20.

Kinderhook is a middle-market private equity firm with investments in the health care, environmental and industrial services and light manufacturing and automotive industries. The firm has raised over $10 billion of committed capital. Its health care portfolio includes value-based primary care physician company Better Health Group, health care and pharmacy provider Avita Care Solutions and value-based integrated health care provider AbsoluteCare.

Dallas-based Enhabit operates 249 home health locations and 117 hospice locations across 34 states. It will retain its name and brand following the close of the Kinderhook deal, according to the company.

Morgan Gonzales is an award-winning reporter and associate editor of Home Health Care News. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of South Carolina and her master's from the University of Georgia. Her work has appeared in Behavioral Health Business, KFF Health News, Dallas Morning News and U.S. News and World Report. When not reporting, Morgan is usually on a trail, doing yoga, or cuddling with her cats, Ellen and Ocho.