Muhlenberg: A lesson from the mighty Saguaro?

Whether or not Solaris CEO John McGee feels Plainfielders' pain at the proposed closing of Muhlenberg (and he is certainly handsomely remunerated to do so -- see here for his 2006 package), the plain fact of the matter is that he is so handsomely paid not to feel our pain, but to run Solaris like a business.

In that regard, perhaps we can learn a lesson from the mighty Saguaro cactus -- symbol of the Southwest.

On my first visit to Arizona, I noticed these stately, slow-growing sentries appeared almost regularly placed in the rugged desert landscape around my parents' Tucson home.

I was puzzled because the juicy and tasty fruits contain thousands of seeds apiece and, with perhaps 200 blooms per mature plant that might lead to fruits, the mighty Saguaro is plenty prolific, so whence the scarcity?

I was told by locals that mature Saguaros defend themselves against the encroachment of upstart baby plants by sending out a toxin in the soil that kills off the little ones, leaving a fairly regularly dotting of the landscape by the mature plants.

Is this a lens for understanding Solaris' take on the Muhlenberg situation?

Word in the street for months has been that there was ANOTHER BUYER and ANOTHER OFFER out there -- that is, other than reported by Solaris as a result of its 'search' for potential buyers.

After portraying the results as that there were 'no buyers' (marketingspeak; there was interest), we finally learn that there has been ANOTHER BUYER indeed (Pine Creek Capital, read more here).

Word has circulated in the street for weeks that Pine Creek Capital -- which specializes in distressed hospitals -- was interested in seriously engaging Solaris over the sale of Muhlenberg.

The rumors even include that Assemblyman Jerry Green was approached and asked to used his good offices to get a sit-down with Solaris officials -- and that Green never pulled a meeting together.

Not only would Pine Creek want to look at the books as part of their due diligence, there would no doubt be discussions about how to pry Muhlenberg lose from the leech-like clutches of Solaris. (I believe the currently preferred Wall Street term is 'unwind' -- as in 'unwind the subprime mortgage mess'.)

Perhaps Solaris is not really interested in 'coming to the phone' -- that is, in selling Muhlenberg -- at all.

Does Solaris have in mind becoming the New Jersey version of a Saguaro -- making sure to poison the ground so that nothing competitive survives in its neighborhood?

And hoping that the traffic forwarded by the satellite Emergency Room and/or the ambulance services would go mostly elsewhere?

(Which a commentator pointed out yesterday [see here] could be sent to yet a third location just by JFK putting themselves on 'divert' status -- in effect declaring they were too busy, whether or not that was actually the case).

This would be bitter fruit indeed.

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• Courier: "McGee: Hospital funds gone"

-- Dan Damon

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