Stacie K. Neroni

Neroni is co-managing partner at the healthcare specialty firm Nelson Hardiman, where she works with pharmacies, hospitals, durable medical equipment providers, ambulatory surgical centers, home health agencies, laboratories and physician groups on compliance requirements imposed by government regulators.

"Healthcare and its regulatory environment is incredibly complex, often with highly localized regulations, so I do work for all kinds of providers," she said.

Lately, she's seeing more investment by private equity in pharmacy businesses, she added.

"They're following the money; it's the next big shiny object."

About half of such investors are in it for the long haul. The rest are looking to make a deal and quickly flip it, she said.

"It's getting harder to make money with the rate reduction pressures from Medicare. And we've been through several years now of efforts to repeal Obamacare, and that hasn't helped the investment environment."

In June, she and Nelson Hardiman colleagues advised Angeles Equity Partners' acquisition of Mini Pharmacy Enterprises, a Los Angeles-based pharmacy licensed in 49 states that specializes in providing diabetes supplies.

The deal closed June 6. Neroni's team provided deal negotiation, drafting and regulatory licensing and enrollment advice on the acquisition. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Earlier, she represented a leading home infusion and specialty pharmacy provider in its $400,000 acquisition of a California based home health agency. Her team led the due diligence review, document negotiation, document drafting and closing in a deal that took fewer than five weeks from start to finish.

In another transaction, Neroni handled the status, strategy and preparation and submission of licensing and enrollment applications across all 50 states for a group of pharmacies and health agencies in a multimillion-dollar deal. As is often the case, she could not disclose the client's name. "Investors don't always want people to know what they're up to," she said.

"Many clients are enrolled or licensed in all states, yet the hoops they need to jump through are localized," Neroni noted. "The problem is that the consequences for doing something wrong are extremely punitive. The penalties can have a massive monetary impact if things don't happen timely and accurately, with carefully timed disclosures--or you can be barred for years. It's a very technical area. California is one of the top five states in complexity. I usually get involved for a provider on the California side of a deal."

Not every deal goes smoothly. "Then I just sit here in my office and grind away on my day-to-day efforts trying to untangle the messes," she said. "I just had a client who did everything wrong--and they had a lawyer do it for them--two years ago, before they came to us. They just found out about it. It happens. I'll try to unwind it and keep the regulators happy."

-- John Roemer