Elaine Yao

Elaine has more than 30 years of experience advising clients, including not-for-profit hospital and healthcare systems on strategy, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, affiliations, capital markets, capital planning, rating agency, and plan of finance activities.

Transformation in the healthcare industry requires investing in growth strategies informed by robust capital planning and capital formation strategies.”

About Elaine

Elaine provides investment banking and advisory expertise to healthcare organizations, enabling strategic and financial transformation, cost savings, and valuation.

Throughout her career, Elaine has:

• Managed the buy-side acquisition of a tertiary hospital for a regional healthcare provider in the Southeast from a large publicly traded healthcare provider, yielding significant savings over the initial ask price for the asset.
• Managed the membership substitution process for a tertiary hospital to an academic medical center, resulting in significant concessions for the benefit of the client, including significant funds for a community charitable foundation, as well as clinical commitments to keep tertiary service lines local.
• Led bank direct placement (DP) financings for healthcare clients, negotiating superior terms that included no impact from the corporate tax rate change in 2018 from margin rate factor language — an interest cost savings of 23% per year.
• Led a strategic discernment process for a regional faith-based healthcare provider to determine strategic options for its laboratory business. The provider ultimately elected to sell the asset. As the strategic adviser, Elaine led the sales process, which achieved the top end of the valuation range.
• Led the rating agency advisory process for a greenfield rating for a small community hospital supported by tax revenue, leading to a one-notch upgrade from the initial committee rating. Subsequently, Elaine served as financial adviser for the bond financing to fund a replacement hospital. The rating difference saved the hospital millions of dollars of interest cost over the life of the bonds.

Prior to joining Huron, Elaine served as managing director at Hammond Hanlon Camp (H2C), having worked for 18 years at H2C and its predecessor company, Shattuck Hammond Partners, providing investment banking services to hospitals and healthcare systems. Elaine also held the role of vice president at Goldman Sachs in its municipal healthcare group.