Addus taking a cautious approach to hospice deals

Addus taking a cautious approach to hospice deals 
Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 11/22/24 
Valuations in the hospice space have led Addus Homecare (Nasdaq: ADUS) to take a more conservative approach to hospice transactions as it actively seeks home health and personal care deals. Hospice multiples reach record highs in 2020 and 2021, as much as 26x. Since then the price tags have reportedly come down, but they haven’t gone far enough, according to Addus President and COO Brad Bickham. The company also seeks to bulk up its home health business relative to the scale of its hospice operations. “First and foremost is the pricing aspect of it. But secondly, it’s probably sequencing to a certain extent,” Bickham said during the Stephens Annual Investment Conference. “Our hospice platform is certainly significantly larger than our home health platform. We have found that home health does a good job of feeding hospice in the markets where we do have that overlap. It’d be good to essentially catch up our home and health platform at the hospice side, and certainly it’s a cheaper valuation.”