The Jupiter Fixed Income team have engaged with Lifepoint Health on a range of topics, from how they report their carbon emissions to representation on their board. Find out what other points were raised and how Lifepoint Health responded in the full engagement study. 

 

Lifepoint Health by the numbers

 

  • Founded in 1999
  • Invested more than $3bn in its facilities since its founding
  • Relationships with more than 16,000 employed and affiliated providers
  • Nearly 50,000 employees
  • 8.5 million+ patient encounters annually
  • Owns and operates:
    o 62 community hospital campuses
    o 32 rehabilitation and behavioural health hospitals
    o 170+ additional sites of care, including acute rehabilitation units, outpatient centres and post-acute care facilities

 

Our initial meeting with Lifepoint Health focused on the amount of reporting we require from investee companies as a result of managing an Article 8+ fund. We felt that their current documentation and the disclosure on their corporate website needed to be materially improved regarding carbon accounting, diversity metrics, and emissions to water and hazardous waste. Lifepoint Health’s management are in the process of pulling together a coherent story and engaging with a consultancy firm to set their strategic ESG KPIs. They recently ran a project to measure their energy consumption, which has led to meaningful cost savings, further incentivising them to continue investing in smart building infrastructure. We asked about the Inflation Reduction Act and the tax breaks available on renewables and green infrastructure, which they are currently evaluating. We also touched on the owner of their business, Apollo, and they confirmed that their backing for ESG priorities is a focus.

 

There is limited disclosure on diversity on their website and we enquired about diversity on their board. Prior to being taken private, it appeared that there had been two female board members and one African American board member, but that was no longer the case.
They have not yet started to look at TCFD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure) analysis, which we encouraged them to do.

 

Their mission is Making Communities Healthier. They directed us to their community benefit report, where they state that they made a payment of c$1.5bn in 2021 to charity care, uninsured discounts and uncompensated care.

 

They reiterated that their focus on ESG should benefit the communities in which they operate. They also see it as a benefit financially (for example, via energy cost savings). They see value in making sure the company is a diverse, inclusive and equitable environment.

The value of active minds – independent thinking

A key feature of Jupiter’s investment approach is that we eschew the adoption of a house view, instead preferring to allow our specialist fund managers to formulate their own opinions on their asset class. As a result, it should be noted that any views expressed – including on matters relating to environmental, social and governance considerations – are those of the author(s), and may differ from views held by other Jupiter investment professionals.

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