A recent article in the publication Workforce Management reports that Revolution Health has signed-on investment bank Morgan Stanley to help it explore options including seeking outside investments and even possible sale.
I’m not at all surprised.
If you have been a regular reader here you know that I am not a big fan of Revolution Health. It’s not that I am against the concept of what Revolution Health is trying to accomplish, far from it. No, it more the ineptitude of the executives at Revolution Health who have spent a boat-load of Steve Case’s money, with little, if anything to show for it.
Yes, Revolution Health may have picked up some interesting acquisitions but their execution stinks. No synergies among acquired properties have been developed, many consumer facing solutions are poorly architected and now with Google and Microsoft jumping into the consumer healthcare market, they have snowball’s chance in hell of making it – at least as a direct to consumer play.
This is the last place I would put investment $$$ (certainly not with the current management in place) and would only pick them up if it was a fire sale price as there is something salvageable here, but it will take even more $$$ to right this severely listing ship.
During WebMD’s Q2-08 call yesterday one of the investment analysts asked if WebMD was interested in acquiring all or part o Revolution Health.
WebMD’s CEO responded by saying no, they are not interested as Revolution Health has not done a good job monetizing their portfolio and thus they see little value.
While that indeed may be true if one considers Revolution Health in its entirety, there are some good properties tucked within that are worth taking a closer look at.