New Beginnings Care LLC, a Hixson-based nursing home chain currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, hopes to put its troubled business up for sale.
New Beginnings wants to hire OEM Capital Corp., a New York City-based investment banking firm, to help it sell its leased nursing homes, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chattanooga, where a hearing will be held at 1 p.m. Thursday on the sale proposal.
Past bankruptcy transactions that OEM Capital Corp. has been involved in include the sale of Dorchester Publishing Group, the New York City-based publisher of mass-market romance, Western and horror books and magazines, including "True Confessions" and "True Stories." After being hired by Dorchester, OEM Capital said it helped sell 12 magazine titles and more than 1,000 book titles, including to Amazon Publishing, which promised to pay book authors royalties unpaid by Dorchester.
Norton W. Lazarus, managing director of OEM Capital, declined to say Monday how much money New Beginnings Care might sell for.
"We'll have to see, it's too early to say at this point," Lazarus said.
New Beginnings Care proposes to pay OEM Capital a retainer of $15,000 a month for at least three months, and then 1.5 percent to 3 percent per property sold, court documents say.
When New Beginnings Care filed on Jan. 22 to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, its bankruptcy petition included 13 facilities in four states: Tennessee, Georgia, Oklahoma and Ohio. That's according to a report filed on April 4 in bankruptcy court by Tennessee's Long-Term Care Ombudsman Laura Brown, who was appointed by the U.S. Trustee as the Patient Care Ombudsman in New Beginnings' case.
Six of those 13 nursing homes were closed after inspectors found various deficiencies and the federal government stopped making Medicaid and Medicare payments after or around the time New Beginnings filed for bankruptcy, Brown wrote in her report.
But there aren't indications of declining care at other nursing homes run by New Beginnings, Brown's report said, including at a 72-bed nursing home in Mt. Pleasant, Tenn., which a representative from Brown's office, Andrea Morrow, visited at least nine times in February and March.
"While Ms. Morrow continued to address an ongoing resident complaint, no new resident complaints were brought to her attention," Brown wrote.
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/MeetsForBusiness or twitter.com/meetfor business or 423-757-6651.