Pamplona Capital Management Names CEO, Executive Leadership Team for Combined MedAssets-Precyse Enterprise

Pamplona Capital Management (Pamplona) is pleased to announce the selection of global business leader J. Joel Hackney, Jr. as Chief Executive Officer for the new company to be formed by the combination of MedAssets’ Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) segment with Precyse, a Pamplona-owned health information management (HIM) services, technology, and education company.

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Joel Hackney (Photo: Business Wire)

Hackney will assume his role following the completion of Pamplona’s acquisition of MedAssets, expected in late January. Hackney’s executive leadership team, also being announced, includes current key leaders from MedAssets and Precyse, providing continuity and legacy expertise as the businesses merge and expand offerings.

The acquisition of MedAssets (NASDAQ: MDAS), a leading healthcare performance improvement company, by Pamplona was announced on November 2, 2015. Pamplona has also entered into a separate agreement with Vizient, Inc. (formerly VHA-UHC Alliance NewCo, Inc.), the nation’s largest member-owned healthcare company, to divest MedAssets’ Spend and Clinical Resource Management (SCM) segment to Vizient following the completion of Pamplona’s acquisition of MedAssets. Both transactions are expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2016.

“Joel has extensive experience in transforming companies into leaders within their industries,” said Jeremy Gelber, M.D., partner at Pamplona Capital Management. “He is a dynamic leader whose diverse background and experience delivering technology enabled solutions make him the perfect person to bring together these companies and to build an enterprise that will raise the bar for healthcare revenue cycle and information management at such a critical time in the industry.”

Hackney has held significant executive leadership positions over the past two decades with some of the world’s most influential businesses, including General Electric, Nortel Networks Corporation and Avaya, and has extensive experience selling into the health system market with both infection control and technology solutions. He was most recently the president and CEO of AVINTIV, Inc. Hackney joined AVINTIV in June 2013 and put the company on an accelerated path of organic and acquisitive growth and global market expansion.

Prior to AVINTIV, Hackney was senior vice president and general manager at Avaya. Prior to Avaya, Hackney spent four years in various executive positions at Nortel, and 14 years at GE, where he led various businesses and functions in both the U.S. and Europe. Hackney holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Attracting top talent to oversee the new business has been a top priority for Pamplona.

“We are drawing upon the strong talent within Precyse and MedAssets, with the experience of additional outside executives to create a team that will ensure a smooth transition and continuity in key areas while positioning the MedAssets-Precyse enterprise to operate as a national leader in the end-to-end revenue cycle technology, outsourced services and education market,” said Gelber. “The existing Precyse and Medassets RCM commercial, technology and service delivery teams will be transitioning to the new business intact and will continue their great results for customers. We are confident in this team’s ability to build a great customer-focused and value-driven company that’s positioned to win over the long term.”

Upon the completion of the MedAssets transaction, Chris Powell, CEO of Precyse, and Amy Amick, President of MedAssets’ RCM business, will serve in new leadership roles in the combined company. Hackney will complement the leadership of Amick, Powell and their leadership teams with additional successful executive leaders that will help guide the combined company toward full integration and long-term growth, including:

Dennis Norman – Chief Financial Officer. Norman has been a key leader at AVINTIV for the past 16 years, responsible for finance, capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, strategic planning, corporate development and investor relations. Since 2009, in his role as executive vice president and CFO, Norman has played a critical part in developing and implementing AVINTIV’s global strategies to support growth and global leadership. Prior to AVINTIV, Norman was with First American Corporation working in investor relations and strategic planning and commercial banking.

Chris Powell – President, Health Information Management. Powell currently serves as CEO of Precyse, where his leadership has driven the organization’s strategy and operations, propelling it to be a market leader in HIM. With a deep background in operations and sales, Powell’s experience includes serving as vice president and general manager of sales and marketing at GE Healthcare and senior vice president of sales at IDX Systems Corporation. This role leverages Powell’s leadership and expertise to establish continuity and position the company to grow its HIM business and integrate with the combined company’s full line of capabilities and services.

Amy Amick – President, Revenue Cycle Management. Amick joined MedAssets in September 2013 as president of the company’s RCM segment, where she is responsible for strategic success and day-to-day operations including strategy, product development and management, and sales and client services. Her substantial background in both services and technology includes serving as chief operating officer for M*Modal, general manager of Worldwide Services for Microsoft, and senior vice president of Services for Allscripts. Widely regarded for her focus on customers and creating operational strength and growth, Amick’s continued role within the combined company will be a key driver in creating continued value creation and customer impact.

Steven Huddleston – Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer. Huddleston is currently a senior advisor at Pamplona Capital Management with more than 23 years of healthcare experience with large hospital and physician organizations. Prior to joining Pamplona in May 2015, he served as managing director in Accenture’s Health Strategy practice. Huddleston spent 15 years with HCA Holdings, where he helped build and implement the largest multi-function healthcare provider shared services organization in the industry and helped launch Parallon, a wholly owned health services subsidiary of HCA.

Barry Murash – Senior Vice President, Business Excellence. Murash has served as the president, Global Operations and Business Excellence for AVINTIV since joining the company in January 2014. Prior to joining AVINTIV, his tenure with Applied Materials included such roles as corporate vice president, Global Fulfillment for Applied Materials; vice president, Global Sourcing; and vice president, Services Product Operations. Prior to that, he served as vice president, Global Operations for Avaya, and held several executive roles across multiple functions during his 22 years with Nortel.

“The opportunity we have to lead our customers, with certainty, into an environment of value-based reimbursements is incredible. Throughout my career I’ve successfully invested in people, programs and technology to evolve industry thinking and customer service,” said Hackney. “I am honored to work alongside this team of accomplished leaders to take on the opportunities ahead as we bring together two organizations into one great company that sets the new standard for healthcare revenue cycle and information management.”

MedAssets and Precyse already have a strategic partnership and share a number of customers, and their offerings are highly complementary. The combined enterprise will offer an end-to-end RCM and HIM solution and will be ideally positioned to partner with health systems to meet the needs of an evolving reimbursement environment that is increasingly requiring outsourced and clinically integrated revenue cycle solutions.

About Pamplona Capital Management
Pamplona Capital Management is a London and New York based specialist investment manager established in 2005 that provides an alternative investment platform across private equity, fund of hedge funds and single manager hedge fund investments. Pamplona Capital Management, LLP manages over USD 10 billion in assets across a number of funds for a variety of clients including public pension funds, international wealth managers, multinational corporations, family offices and funds of hedge funds. Pamplona is currently managing its fourth private equity fund, Pamplona Capital Partners IV LP, which was raised in 2014. Pamplona invests long-term capital across the capital structure of its portfolio companies in both public and private market situations. Please see Pamplonafunds.com for more information.

About MedAssets
MedAssets (NASDAQ: MDAS) is a healthcare performance improvement company that combines strategic market insight with rapid operational execution to help providers sustainably serve the needs of their communities. More than 4,500 hospitals and 123,000 non-acute healthcare providers rely on our solutions to reduce the total cost of care, enhance operational efficiency, align clinical delivery, and improve revenue performance across the System of CARE.

About Precyse
Precyse uniquely interweaves people, technology and education to remove barriers between clinical and financial operations, enabling healthcare organizations to thrive. The company has helped nearly 5,000 healthcare organizations nationwide improve efficiency and deliver tangible outcomes for more than fifteen years. Precyse offers fully outsourced Health Information Management (HIM) Services, Medical Coding, Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI), Medical Transcription, Cancer Registry and Oncology Data Management; an HIM Automation platform with expert workflow technologies and Natural Language Processing (NLP) that supports all inpatient and outpatient Computer Assisted Coding, and Computer Assisted CDI needs; and Precyse University™, an education solution targeted towards helping hospitals optimize coding, revenue cycle management, healthcare operations, clinical documentation, and case management practices before they hit the bottom line. Please visit www.precyse.com for more information.

About Vizient, Inc. (formerly VHA-UHC Alliance NewCo, Inc.)
Effective April 1, 2015, VHA, the national health care network of not-for-profit hospitals, and UHC, the alliance of the nation’s leading academic medical centers, along with Novation, their health care contracting company, combined into a single organization – Vizient. Vizient is the largest member-owned health care company in the country and is dedicated to leading health care innovation, creating knowledge and fostering collaboration to help our members thrive. The company serves more than 5,200 health system members and affiliates as well as 167,000 non-acute health care customers. Members range from independent, community-based health care organizations to large, integrated systems and academic medical centers, and it represents more than $60 billion in annual purchasing volume. Headquarters are in Irving, Texas, with locations in Chicago and other cities across the United States.

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