Gentiva Health (NASDAQ: GTIV) shareholders jumped 62% today after Kindred Healthcare (KND +0.00%) made public a $533 million bid for the company that had been rejected by Gentiva's management. Kindred has offered to take the deal from half-and-half cash and stock to all cash to make the deal more attractive, and Kindred also intends to assume Gentiva's debt, which spikes the deal's price to $1.6 billion.
M&A transactions to achieve better scale have been all the rage in health care, and this is no different -- Gentiva offers Kindred a nice opportunity to strengthen its home health and hospice business, and the combined entity would be the largest by revenue in the post-acute care market.
In the video below, from Thursday's Market Checkup, Motley Fool health care analysts Michael Douglass and David Williamson discuss the deal and what it could mean for both companies.
