Puerto Rico Deals Offer Diversification to GuideWell, Anthem

September 3

Puerto Rico recently has become a hotbed of merger and acquisition activity, with two of the territory’s largest health insurers agreeing to be sold to mainland-based companies. Industry analysts say that the deals are motivated by the same rationale driving most insurer M&A — diversification — though they also caution that the unique regulatory environment in Puerto Rico presents some risks.

GuideWell Mutual Holding Corp., the parent company of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, Inc., said on Aug. 24 that it reached an agreement to purchase Triple-S Management Corp. in a deal worth $900 million. As part of the transaction, GuideWell will acquire all the outstanding shares of Triple-S common stock for $36 per share in cash. Triple-S is Puerto Rico’s largest health insurer, with more than 980,000 members across multiple business lines, according to AIS’s Directory of Health Plans (DHP).

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Health Plan Weekly

Leslie Small

Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.