After HCA announced in November it had recruited its longtime outside legal counsel Joseph Sowell to be chief development officer, we couldn’t help but wonder if it means there will be more buying and selling in the hospital giant’s future.

 

Sowell, who was a partner at Nashville law firm Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, worked with HCA off and on for 25 years, handling many of the company’s large transactions —including its 2005 divestiture of 10 hospitals for more than $500 million.

 

His appointment fills a roughly nine-month vacancy in HCA’s leadership team, left when veteran chief development officer Carl George retired earlier this year. Sowell noted that the company is changing its corporate development structure under his leadership.

 

“Part of my move there is the development function for all areas,” Sowell said. Now, instead of focusing just on the buying and selling of hospitals, the chief development officer will encompass acquisitions of physician practices and surgery centers, for example.

 

Not surprisingly, Sowell and an HCA spokesman wouldn’t say if there was a new or different buy/sell strategy for HCA under Sowell. But HCA CEO Richard Bracken recently said the company is interested in deals “consistent with our network strategy.” HCA owned 163 hospitals and 105 freestanding surgery centers as of Sept. 30, 2009.

 

Add Sowell’s hiring to that of former Psychiatric Solutions COO Terrance Bridges as head of behavioral health services in October 2009 and the recent announcement that Bracken will fill the chairman’s seat after the retirement of Jack Bovender, and it looks like HCA is positioning itself in the market as a company ready for growth.

 

“If they were to market themselves in an IPO, having the infrastructure in place to go out into the market and say we have two vehicles for growth — good solid organic growth, and we have the infrastructure to go out and pursue external or acquisitive growth — those would probably be viewed positively by investors,” said Nashville-based RBC Capital analyst Frank Morgan.