A court-appointed receiver who is selling loans made to Santa Ana-based hospital operator Integrated Healthcare Holdings Inc. said he has entered agreements with about 11 potential additional bidders.
Thomas Seaman of the Thomas Seaman Co. in Irvine also said he’s been in contact with “numerous interested parties” about the loans. Names of potential bidders weren’t disclosed in his court filing this week.
Seaman is the court-appointed receiver for Integrated’s defunct lender, Medical Capital Holdings Inc. of Tustin.
Medical Capital was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission and went into receivership last year.
Kali P. Chaudhuri, a Riverside doctor who owns about half of Integrated, is expected to bid on the loans in the receivership auction.
One rival bid could come from Prem Reddy’s Ontario-based Prime Healthcare Services Inc., which runs four local hospitals.
Chaudhuri is expected to bid $55 million for the loans, according to a court document.
Reddy and any other potential bidders would have to offer a minimum of $57 million based on an overbid procedure designed to shop the loans to other bidders.
Prime is still considering whether to bid on the loans and is likely to know what it will do by Monday, said Michael Sarrao, the company’s vice president and general counsel.
The deadline for Prime to submit materials to Seaman is Wednesday, according to Sarrao.
U.S. District Judge David Carter, who is overseeing the Medical Capital case, has a hearing set for March 22.
The loans originally were made in 2005 and were refinanced in 2007 for about $90 million. They now have a balance of about $74 million, according to court documents.
The debt is backed by Integrated’s hospitals. The company operates Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, Western Medical Center-Anaheim, Chapman Medical Center in Orange and Santa Ana’s Coastal Communities Hospital.
