HEALTH SERVICES CORPORATION SELLS

Health Services Corporation of America was started three decades ago with $75 cash in a basement room and ballooned into a successful purchasing organization for hospitals.

The Cape Girardeau-based company was sold in a multimillion-dollar deal to MedAssets Inc., with offices in Alpharetta, Ga., and Northbrook, Ill.

Earl Norman, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of HSCA, which owns the company's headquarters at Lorimont Place, 840 S. Mount Auburn Road, announced the sale Tuesday.

Included in the acquisition is an agreement for MedAssets to lease Lorimont Place with an option to purchase it within two years. The complex includes the four-level, 60,000-square-foot HSCA corporate headquarters building, 32,000 square feet of retail lease space, a two-level parking garage and 1.3-acre area designed to accommodate up to a 12,000-square-foot anchor tenant with available land options.

The acquisition established MedAssets as one of the four largest group-purchasing organizations in the United States. It gives the company combined purchasing power of more than $4.5 billion in existing contracts with 13,000 members nationwide. Through group purchasing, the companies offer medical equipment and supplies to hospitals at lower costs.

Norman will remain a shareholder of MedAssets and serve on the MedAssets board.

"This is a good deal for everyone concerned," Norman said. "It will eventually result in up to 30 new workers in the immediate area."

A combination of HSCA, MedAssets and InSource, a MedAssets company, "is a positive step toward establishing the business as the most effective and efficient provider in bringing value to all constituents, suppliers and providers, from the largest to the smallest," said Norman. "The blending is a significant step toward creating a new, more efficient procurement service company for the health-care industry."

"It has been a fun trip," Norman said. "We started in the hometown, and after a full business life, it will remain in the hometown. I'm looking forward to retirement. I want to give up the day-by-day managerial duties."

Norman will maintain an office in the building.

Norman founded the company Feb. 1, 1969, calling on 10 hospitals with a total of 1,200 beds that provided the market for the beginning of a company called Mid-America Shared Services. The company now calls on between 1,600 and 1,700 health-care facilities and employs about 135 people, half of them locally. The company services accounts in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

During the 1980s, the company acquired Cooperative Purchasing Association of Arizona, Shared Services Corp. of Montana and Commodities Purchasing Association of Colorado. Norman changed the company name to HSCA in 1984 to reflect both the national scope and size of the organization.

In 1990, HSCA formed a foundation to provide money for careers in health care. Since then, Health Careers Foundation has helped more than 3,000 students pursue health-care careers.

"We're proud of this foundation," said Norman. "MedAssets Inc. has indicated it will continue the program."

Scholarships and loans are available to high school or college students seeking a degree or certificate in health care. The program is offered exclusively to those seeking a career in the allied health professions, not medicine or hospital administration.

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