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UnitedHealth Group’s Optum has scooped up Healthcare Associates of Texas from Webster Equity Partners, sources familiar with the matter tell Sarah.

Why it matters: The deal is yet another data point that reflects Optum’s intent to build large clinician groups in key health care markets, along with its dedication to value-based care.

• HCAT has a big provider footprint in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, one of the largest metro areas in the country, and the largest in its home state.
• The platform is well-positioned and has begun to transition to value-based care, sources say, offering broad ancillary services around its core primary care platform. Services include a wellness clinic for chronic health problems, pharmacy services, imaging, and similar.

Details: Optum’s acquisition assigns HCAT an enterprise value approaching $300 million and implies a high-teens EBITDA multiple, sources say.

• SVB Securities advised HCAT on the transaction, the people add. SVB also advised LHC Group on its recent $5.4 billion sale to Optum.
• United has coveted HCAT and made past overtures for the business, sources add.
• Healthcare PE shop Webster invested in HCAT in 2016, and built the platform through M&A and accelerating its ancillary service strategy.

Between the lines: The deal adds to Optum’s recent buying streak, coming on the heels of other major provider bets.

Yes, and: Value-based care is a recurring theme that Optum is investing behind.

• Optum in 2021 scooped up Landmark Health, an home care provider going after the sickest and most complicated populations.
• And in 2020 it bought CD&R’s naviHealth, which aims to reduce the cost of post-acute health care. The deal was valued at $2.5 billion including debt, Sarah reported at the time.

Meanwhile, an SEC filing in April disclosed that TPG Capital agreed to buy ClaimsXten from Change Healthcare for $2.2 billion, contingent on Optum completing its $8 billion deal for Change.

👀 What we’re watching: Optum’s next buy.

• “I’d say, overall, our pipeline of opportunities I actually think is probably as diverse as it’s ever been and as deep as it’s ever been,” UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty told investors in April.

Webster did not return a request for comment.

Source: https://www.axios.com/pro/health-tech-deals/newsletters/2022/06/01/health-tech-autism-care-funding