People: Nix leads Deloitte M&A transaction services here

By Milt Capps Last updated 11:21 p.m., Jan. 14, 2010

Published January 14, 2010

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Lisa Nix of Deloitte

Nashville has become the aerie-of-choice for executives with an eagle's-eye on the nation's healthcare sector.

One of those sharp-eyed professionals is Lisa Nix, who is director of mergers and acquisitions transactions services for Deloitte & Touche LLP's national life sciences and health care M&A transactions-services group, within Deloitte offices in downtown Nashville.

Deloitte has about 50 professionals in Nashville serving healthcare clients, in some way. Nix told VNC yesterday she is one of only about 20 Deloitte healthcare-oriented accounting and tax professionals with transaction-services roles similar to hers in the U.S.

In her work, Nix said she has access to "hundreds" of Deloitte healthcare specialists. Deloitte's Washington, D.C., Center for Health

Solutions is led by former Nashville resident Paul Keckley, Ph.D. Keckley was once executive director of the Vanderbilt Center for Evidence-Based Medicine.

Deloitte's worldwide M&A-focused network includes about 4,000 professionals, according to Nix. According to Deloitte data, more than 169,000 professionals in an array of independent companies work under the Deloitte brand, worldwide.

During her nearly 20 years with Deloitte, Nix told VNC she has spent more than four years in transaction services, after spending 15 years in auditing. Nix is a CPA and a 1989 graduate of Middle Tennessee State University. Her hometown is Lewisburg, Tenn., about 50 miles south of Nashville.

In her transaction and advisory-services roles, Nix has served private, public and not-for-profit clients in the healthcare and managed-care sectors.

Yesterday, she told VNC she is usually introduced to a budding deal after a letter of intent is signed by the parties, then stays with the transaction til its culmination. She said that though her jobs involves some travel, a great deal of her work can be done from Nashville, using Deloitte technology.

Her duties have her deeply immersed in the particulars of bankruptcies; reorganizations; acquisition due diligence for financial and strategic buyers; and, support for initial public offerings and secondary equity and debt offerings in the healthcare industry.

Nix frequently leads multi-disciplinary teams that confront healthcare-sector issues including compliance, reimbursement, tax, regulatory affairs, integration of firms involved in M&A, and human capital issues, including employee benefits.

Although Nix declined to name Deloitte healthcare clients, information provided VNC yesterday by Deloitte indicates Nix's engagements have included work supporting transactions involving acute-care hospitals, surgical facilities, home health, skilled nursing facilities, disease management, dialysis clinics, laboratory services, physician practices, pharmaceutical services and psychiatric/behavioral care.

In December, Nix was accorded Leadership Health Care's "Volunteer of the Year" award, recognizing her sustained contributions to LHC's development, including her current service as an LHC board member and her contributions to LHC's growth from an initial 30 members to about 560, today.

Deloitte's Tennessee practice is led by Managing Partner Tom Aaron and headquartered at 424 Church Street. ♦