Florida’s Mednax to acquire radiology firm vRad for $500M

Mednax will buy radiology and telemedicine firm vRad for $500 million, the companies announced Tuesday.
The Sunrise-based medical network (NYSE: MD) expects to close the deal in the second quarter. Mednax will take on vRad’s executive team, keeping the company’s headquarters and operations center in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
Mednax CEO Roger Medel said the acquisition would expand the services that the network can offer to its hospital partners.
"We believe vRad is an excellent platform for growth in teleradiology and the broader telemedicine market," Medel said in a news release. "Radiology is a large, fragmented industry with total revenue of roughly $18 billion, and it is evolving rapidly to include teleradiology as an economic and clinical necessity for customers.”
Credit Suisse Securities is vRad’s financial adviser on the deal, and Kirkland & Ellis LLP is its legal counsel.
Short for Virtual Radiologic, vRad allows customers to outsource radiology services and offers telemedicine. The company, which includes 350 physicians, interprets more than 5 million patient studies annually.
Mednax focuses on neonatal, anesthesia, maternal-fetal and pediatric physician subspecialty services.
The company spent $490 million on acquisitions in 2014, buying eight anesthesiology practices, three pediatrics practices, a medical billing company and a consulting firm.
Mednax is South Florida’s 17th-largest public company, according to South Florida Business Journal research. The company reported $2.44 billion in 2014 revenue, up from $2.15 billion in 2013.