Providence parent exploring merger
Providence Health & Services, the Renton, Washington-based parent organization of the Providence hospitals in Spokane and Eastern Washington, is exploring a merger with St. Joseph Health, a Catholic health care system based in California.
The two nonprofits announced recently that they’ve begun talks on a merger, noting the discussions are “in the very early stages.”
Providence Health’s system includes 34 hospitals, including Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center and Providence Holy Family Hospital in Spokane.
St. Joseph Health’s system has 16 hospitals in California and Texas.
In announcing the merger talks, the two organizations said they are “two mission-focused organizations which truly have the potential of being better together.”
A spokeswoman for Providence in Spokane referred questions to the parent organization in Renton; a spokeswoman there didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
CHAS gets grant to open Cheney clinic
The Community Health Association of Spokane, also known as CHAS Health, has received a $358,333 federal grant to open a clinic in Cheney.
The clinic’s targeted opening date is in December. The grant is part of $169 million in federal Affordable Care Act funding to open 266 new community health clinics across the nation.
The Cheney clinic will be the first of its kind in the West Plains area, which has about 10,000 low-income residents, said Aaron Wilson, CHAS Health’s chief executive officer. CHAS worked with local stakeholders to plan the clinic, he said.
Edward Jones to pay $20M for overcharges
ST. LOUIS – Edward Jones has agreed to pay more than $20 million to settle claims by federal regulators that the brokerage firm and its former head of municipal underwriting overcharged customers in new municipal bonds sales, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced Thursday.
Municipal bonds are debt securities issued by states, cities, counties and other governmental entities typically to finance long-term public projects such as building schools, highways or sewer systems.
Underwriters are required to offer new bonds to their customers at the “initial offering price,” which is negotiated with the bonds’ issuer. But the SEC said it found that largely between 2009 and 2012, Edward Jones and Stina Wishman – then chief of the firm’s municipal bond underwriting desk – instead took new bonds into the firm’s own inventory and improperly offered them to customers at higher prices.
Edward Jones’ customers paid at least $4.6 million more than they should have for new bonds. Under the settlement $5.2 million will be distributed to those past and current clients.
Neither Edward Jones nor Wishman admits violating any federal securities laws.
Union Pacific cuts jobs as coal volume falls
OMAHA, Neb. – Union Pacific will cut hundreds of management jobs as the amount of coal shipped by railroads continues to plunge.
The Omaha company reported late last month that coal volume dropped 26 percent in its most recent quarter and said it believed that demand for coal would remain weak for the rest of the year.
Pacific spokesman Aaron Hunt said Thursday that the cutbacks were job eliminations, not just temporary layoffs.