Tunstall Americas finds a Mountain Home

November 4, 2014 | by

Gold in dem der hills? Tunstall Americas, Tunstall Healthcare Group’s US subsidiary, on Monday announced the acquisition of Mountain Home Medical, a Denver, Colorado-based telehealth provider of medical alarm and medication manager systems for the home market. In its announcement, Tunstall Americas gave the reason as “The acquisition demonstrates Tunstall’s commitment to expand its service footprint across the United States through acquiring or partnering with highly regarded regional, state, and local providers… ” Mountain Home is certainly the latter with business only in the state’s 53 counties, serving Medicaid eligible and private pay customers. Industry estimates put their subscriber base at under 5,000 customers.

A change in US strategy? Unlike Tunstall in the UK and Europe, the Americas subsidiary has maintained a low profile since the 2011 acquisition of AMAC, which at time of sale (more…)

IBM Watson decision tools expand, lands at NYC HQ

October 9, 2014 | by

Confirming that New York metro’s once-devastated (post-dot.com bust) ‘Silicon Alley’ is increasingly attractive to healthcare and tech firms, IBM this past Monday opened its new NYC downtown headquarters at Astor Place for the IBM Watson Group. Our readers have been following the development of Watson in the healthcare decision-making process since 2012 [TTA’s article index here], primarily in oncology (breast and lung cancer), in the UK (via the RSM’s 5 June ‘Big Data’ conference) as well as the US. IBM Watson has smartly created Ecosystem Partners where third parties integrate Watson. The spread is fairly wide: travel (your Editor’s former industry), retail, veterinary care, IT security and support, cognitive computing and of course healthcare. Spotlighted were three companies: @PointofCare, Welltok and GenieMD. (more…)

Tunstall’s unhappy lenders and the consequences of debt service

May 22, 2014 | by | 2 Comments

A ‘slipped under the radar’ story (in this Editor’s judgement, based on the lack of news references) is Bloomberg News’ exclusive on last week’s (12 May) meetings between Tunstall Group Ltd and its creditors over the company’s recent performance. According to Bloomberg’s sources, the meeting was called “after income plunged and management changed following a refinancing in September.” In a statement from Charterhouse that cleverly tap-danced past the reason for the meeting, “Tunstall continues to be a successful, profitable, cash-generating business and comparable to many other organizations, experiences short-term fluctuations in performance.” and “The group has been impacted by a number of factors including specific market factors and the continued strength of sterling against the major-trading currencies.” The business has also been hurt by delays in awarding major contracts, according to the statement.

From the Bloomberg article:

As Tunstall’s profits have declined, its ratio of debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization increased to 5.6 times as of March, from 4.7 times in September, the people said. The loan terms in the March test dictated that the leverage ratio shouldn’t exceed 6.3 times, they said.

Lenders are expecting the company to give a new profit forecast today for the 12 months to September 2014, according to the people. The company didn’t comment on earnings targets or leverage in its statement.

AND: Its 350 million pounds ($590 million) of loans dropped to as little as 77 pence on the pound, according to broker quotes, from 99 pence in September. (Ed. note: these loans are publicly traded and a lowered value is highly significant as to the debt quality.)

The outcome of the meeting is not yet known.

As our readers know, private equity firm Charterhouse Capital Partners LLP acquired Tunstall Group in 2008 from Bridgepoint Capital  for £514 million (US$ 1 billion), funded in part with over £242 million in debt and with Bridgepoint and management retaining small shares (FT.com). The September 2013 refinancing was for £350 million ($590 million). This paints a picture of a highly leveraged company beholden to many beyond its owners and its contractors in local authorities and housing associations. Tunstall and Charterhouse also received negative publicity when the Guardian did an exposé on their use of the (wholly legal) ‘Quoted Eurobond Exemption’, where they pay loan interest at high rates to their parent companies through a mechanism via the Channel Islands Stock Exchange.

Management changes over the past six months have also rocked the top layers of the company. (more…)

Short, ‘springy’ takes for Friday

March 21, 2014 | by

IBM Watson crunches the genomics for glioblastoma. A clinical trial at seven locations is being developed in partnership with the NY Genome Center to identify potential treatment options for the most common type of brain tumor–one where diagnosis and treatment time is of the essence.  iHealthBeat, Modern Healthcare….Also in NY, Montefiore Medical Center in The Bronx is evaluating several mobile initiatives including a current pilot for texts/care management to support diabetic teenagers, as well as evaluating interacting with diabetics on fitness and  biosensor monitoring. FierceMobileHealthcare….Yecco’s social media platform for families caring for older adults [TTA 13 Mar] adds insurance. Allianz Global Assistance UK announced Yecco Home Care insurance, providing up to six weeks of assistance at home following an accident, injury or hospitalization. Release….Six US Senators seek clarification on FDA mobile health regulations. The letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg inquired on FDA plans and asked if legislative assistance might be required. The FDA/ONC-HIT framework report originally due in January now has a deadline of 31 March. iHealthBeat. The Hill ‘Healthwatch’….The Samsung Galaxy S5 won’t be considered a medical device by South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. According to Engadget, it was the heart-rate sensor that subjected it to stricter regulations under current South Korean laws. Oy….And it took a while, but finally the Tunstall Americas management page lists new CEO Casey Pittock at the top! (No release yet though.)

Tunstall Americas’ change at the top

March 14, 2014 | by

BREAKING NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Casey Pittock has been appointed the new President and CEO of Tunstall Americas, replacing Bradley Waugh. No official announcement yet by Tunstall, but there is a video on YouTube (below) from the Medical Alert Monitoring Association conference this past Wednesday (12 March) with Tunstall Healthcare Group CEO Paul Stobart (himself only about 100 days on the job–TTA’s exclusive in November) introducing his “three days in the job” Tunstall Americas CEO (at 03:41 to end). Mr. Pittock’s LinkedIn profile also reflects his new company and title.

Mr. Pittock’s prior positions were generally with smaller, entrepreneurial companies. He was previously VP Sales and Marketing with BAM Labs, developer of a ‘smart bed’ monitor partnering with Stanley Healthcare, acting President of BlueLibris digital health trackers (sold to Numera Health) and President-CEO of once-promising fall detector/alert Wellcore which formally closed down last year. He was a founder of alert company TelCARE, sold to Lifeline (now Philips Lifeline). Mr. Waugh had been President and CEO of NaviNet at the time of its purchase and joined Tunstall shortly thereafter in September 2012–a 19 month tenure. The Tunstall Americas leadership team webpage has not been changed as of Monday 17 March, 23:20 US-EDT. Tunstall is still officially headquartered in NYC (Long Island City), but while Mr. Waugh was from the Rhode Island area (and moved many Tunstall operations there), Mr. Pittock’s LinkedIn profile locates him in a posh section of Silicon Valley in California. It will be interesting to see if there’s also a HQ move in store for Tunstall.

[This video is no longer available on this site but may be findable via an internet search]