Health, hotel and restaurant buyouts

South Florida CEO, June, 2007 by Oriane Luch, Yeleny Suarez

Quest Diagnostics Inc. agreed to a $2 billion cash deal (including $770 million in debt) to purchase Palm Beach Gardens-based AmeriPath Inc. Lyndhurst, NJ-based Quest expects AmeriPath's $800 million in annual revenue and cancer diagnostics expertise will add to its own diagnostic testing capabilities. Neither company has said how or if the acquisition will affect AmeriPath's South Florida presence.

New York-based Apollo Investment Corp. will buy Palm Beach-based hotel real estate investment trust Innkeepers USA Trust for $1.5 billion plus assumption of Innkeepers' debt. Innkeepers' 74-hotel portfolio includes Residence Inn, Summerfield Suites and Hampton Inn. The public company will remain an REIT and will be managed by an affiliate of CEO Jeffery H. Fisher.

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Casual eatery Roadhouse Grill, which emerged from bankruptcy in 2002, will be acquired by Palm Beach Gardens-based Duffy's Holdings Inc., operator of Duffy's Sports Grills. Duffy's will first purchase 85.5 percent of Pompano Beach-based Roadhouse's publicly traded stock, then complete a short-form merger, plus invest an additional $11 million in cash, for a total investment of $29 million. Duffy's currently operates 15 restaurants and Roadhouse 57; Duffy's will decide which of those to convert to its own brand. Roadhouse, which terminated a previous planned merger in March 2006, lost $9 million in the nine months ending January 22, on $83.4 million in revenues.

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