Anxiety is high as Mass. Steward hospitals await auctions

After months of uncertainty around the future of Steward Health Care, the company’s hospitals are set to be sold at a series of auctions this summer. But the sales process is off to a rocky start, and public officials and health care leaders are growing concerned that not all of Steward’s hospitals will attract buyers.and had planned to auction off dozens of hospitals in June. But those auctions have been delayed.

David Storto, a consultant and former Massachusetts hospital executive, said he’s skeptical that many hospital operators will be eager to submit bids for Steward hospitals. A hospital sale typically takes months or even years. Steward doesn’t have that kind of time. It’s relying on temporary financing to keep the doors of its hospitals open. The company hasn’t said how long that financing will last, but its deals with lenders demand that it sell its assets quickly.David Storto, a former Massachusetts hospital executiveIt has been marketing its hospitals and doctors group to potential buyers for months.

One of the biggest complications in any potential deal is that Steward does not own its real estate. In 2016, the company sold its property to an Alabama-based real estate investment trust, Medical Properties Trust, or MPT, and is locked into escalating lease payments. Steward used the proceeds of the property sale to

The auctions are scheduled to take place in a high-rise office building on New York's Fifth Avenue, where groups of lawyers and financial advisors gather in conference rooms and virtually to negotiate terms of the sales — in secret. The winning bids will be made public.

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