By The Bay Health, a Larkspur hospice organization, plans to merge with Mission Hospice and Home Care and Hope Hospice in 2024 with the deal becoming final by the end of the year.
Hope Hospice is located in Dublin and Mission calls San Mateo home.
By The Bay Health has been serving Marin, Sonoma, Alameda, San Francisco and San Mateo counties as a nonprofit affiliate of UCSF providing hospice, palliative and pediatric care, grief support as well as skilled home care. Mission Hospice serves the Peninsula and South Bay while Hope Hospice serves the East Bay and the Tri-Valley area.
The newly joined trio of facilities represents the largest not-for-profit network in Northern California. The joint venture should provide some advantage to the hospices via volume purchasing, staffing advantages and economies of scale.
While the Bay Area is projecting to gain a higher percentage of senior population in the coming years, the graying of Marin has been going on for some time. The services of Bay Health have been well used locally and the merger should give the Marin-based organization some added stability.
City of Novato looks at assets
The City of Novato is staring at a budget deficit of $2.6 million and, with limited revenue streams, the city council is considering the sale or lease of at least a trio of city owned properties. The former Novato Human Needs Center at 1523 S. Novato Blvd. is one of the assets being considered. Another is a home at 1663 Novato Blvd. while the other property is the vacant Community House at 908 Machin Ave.
This month the city council plans a meeting on steroids with its Economic Development Advisory Commission and its Finance Advisory Commission to discuss how assets should be examined with an eye toward providing data to city staff to make recommendations to the council on how to proceed. The city may also hire a real estate advisor on what path makes the most sense in terms of sale and lease options.
And if that meeting doesn’t sound like a funky goodtime, it’s possible that you are underestimating the entertainment value of such a gathering.
BioMarin ‘welcomes’ activist investor
For those of you who are loyal readers of this column (the few, the proud), this next item may feel like déjà vu all over again. Through the miracle of lead time and news happening after we have gone to print but before this periodical lands in your mail receptacle, this is the second time in two months we bring you BioMarin Pharmaceutical-Elliott news.
The San Rafael-based biotech focused on creating rare-disease drugs, settled with hedge fund Elliott Investment Management LP by placing three new independent directors on its board of directors. Elliott had been rumored to be buying up BioMarin in November, running its BioMarin holdings up to $1 billion.
And while market rumors are frequently self-serving designed to run share prices up or to run company values down, this one turned out to be true. BioMarin was forced by the investor to expand its board by a trio for a total of 15 members. The company also agreed to share information with Elliott and form a committee to review company operations.
The Strategic and Operating Review Committee will examine BioMarin’s “business strategy and operations, financial capital allocation priorities and long-term planning and priorities.”
In a statement Elliott said in part, “We thank the board and the management for their constructive dialogue and we look forward to continuing our work with them.”
If that sounds a little like a bad toast at a wedding where guests wonder about the happiness of the blessed union, you haven’t missed a thing.
Your Marin moment
Marinites are givers, this is well known. And so, the Marin County Sheriff’s office was deeply concerned when residents began complaining last month about a scam where residents were being told they were being fined for failing to show up for jury duty. Those contacted were told a warrant had been issued for failure to show up for jury duty, and a demand for payment via gift card or some other cashless method.
The sheriff’s office warned it would never contact residents for such a thing.
For those of us who have served on a jury and basked in the glow that comes from fulfilling your civic duty, the warning was good news.
The last time I was sitting in the jury pool and was asked by the judge if there was any reason I could not serve, I mentioned I knew both the defense attorney and the prosecutor. The judge looked askance at both attorneys as if he questioned their taste in acquaintances and said I could take my leave.
Bill Meagher is a contributing editor at NorthBay biz Magazine and pens this column on a monthly basis as well as occasional features. He is also an associate editor at The Deal, a digital financial news outlet based in Manhattan.
