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Community Health Systems Inc. Ratings Affirmed; Outlook Stable
- Franklin, Tenn.-based acute-care hospital operator Community Health
Systems Inc. reported weaker-than-expected third-quarter results,
highlighted by declining patient volumes, the impact from hurricanes in
key markets, and declining margins.
- Despite disappointing results, we see a path to stabilizing margins,
based on the completion of the company's most recent divestiture plan,
the temporary nature of the impact from the hurricanes, the anticipated
additional divestitures, and a renewed focus on local market initiatives.
- We affirmed our ratings on the company, including the 'B-' corporate
credit rating. The outlook remains stable.
- The stable outlook reflects our expectations that margins will stabilize
and show limited improvement as the company divests underperforming
hospitals. However, leverage will remain high and cash flow is only
minimally positive over the next few quarters.
NEW YORK (S&P Global Ratings) Nov. 7, 2017--S&P Global Ratings today affirmed
its 'B-' corporate credit rating on Community Health Systems Inc. The outlook
remains stable.
At the same time, we affirmed our issue-level ratings, including the 'B+'
rating on the senior secured debt, and 'CCC' rating on the unsecured debt. The
recovery rating on the senior secured debt is '1', indicating our expectation
for very high (90%-100%; rounded estimate: 90%) recovery in the event of a
payment default. The recovery rating on the unsecured debt is '6', reflecting
our expectation for minimal (0%-10%; rounded estimate: 0%) recovery in the
event of payment default.
Community Health reported another quarter of weak operating results as a
result of continued weakness in patient volume, hurricane activity in key
markets, and significant asset sales as the company has moved aggressively to
complete its plan to divest 30 hospitals. Although the company's core business
remains challenged, and we may see some further deterioration in the fourth
quarter of 2017, we think operations will begin to stabilize in 2018.
Our stable rating outlook reflects our expectation that Community will
complete its asset sales, stabilize its operation, and be able to generate at
least some free cash flow over the next two years, notwithstanding leverage
that we expect to remain above 7x.
We could lower the rating if we don't have confidence that Community will have
a plan to refinance the debt maturing in 2019 by the second quarter of 2018.
We expect the company will still have a large amount of debt to refinance even
after selling additional hospitals in early 2018. We could also lower the
rating if we do not have the confidence that the company has stabilized the
performance of the hospitals it plans to retain. If adjusted margins in 2018
fall to about 9% (about 250 basis points below our 2018 estimate) we could
lower the rating. Under this scenario, we would likely view the company's
capital structure as unsustainable over the long term, despite currently
adequate liquidity.
We could raise the rating if we become more certain that Community can
generate about $200 million in positive, recurring discretionary free cash
flow. In our view, this could happen if the company realizes the cash flow
benefit from divesting hospitals that were cash flow drains, and achieves our
2018 base-case projection of a 13% adjusted EBITDA margin which would be an
improvement of over 100 basis points from our 2017 estimate.