Alhambra Hospital Close to Being Sold

A Taiwanese investor is close to buying Alhambra Community Hospital, a deal that officials hope will improve local health care and bail the city out of a multimillion-dollar debt.

City officials Monday announced they have chosen ACH Acquisition Group from among three groups offering to buy the 17-year-old hospital, which is owned by the Alhambra Redevelopment Agency. The hospital has been financially unstable for the past decade. ACH, the only potential buyer financed primarily with foreign money, offered the highest price.

ACH general partner Wang Yu-Lien, a prominent businessman and philanthropist in Taiwan, has proposed paying $10 million in cash for the hospital and turning it into a private, for-profit facility. The purchase price also would retire the bonds the city issued in 1972 to build the 157-bed hospital. It opened in 1974.

Wang also has pledged to make $5 million in improvements--including the addition of an obstetrics ward--and to put up $1 million to keep the hospital operating until the deal closes, City Manager Kevin Murphy said.

The hospital, which is run by Alhambra Hospital Corp., has failed to keep pace with changing health-care trends and has been a financial drain on the city for years. It still owes the city and redevelopment agency $4.2 million in delinquent rent payments, which would be covered by the proposed sale.

Wang’s representative in Southern California, Theresa K. Chang, is expected to sign a letter of intent to buy the hospital soon, said the firm’s lawyer, Michael Thornhill. If all goes well, the hospital will change hands in September.

All hospital employees would keep their jobs, including administrator John Edwards, according to Thornhill.

This is Wang’s first entry into the health-care business. But local physicians have already expressed interest in the venture and may want to become partners in it, Thornhill said.

“For the American community and for the Chinese community in the Los Angeles area . . . (Alhambra Community Hospital) will become a resource and a point of identity,” Thornhill said.

Alhambra has been trying to find a buyer for the hospital since 1989, when a group of doctors offered to buy the facility but failed to obtain financing for the $13.6-million deal.