Adventist Health System Shifting Self-Image from “Self-Preservation Poor” to “Enlightened Rich”
5 September 2018 | In an article on finance site top1000funds, the chief investment officer for Adventist Health System, Rob Roy, was quoted as saying that the large network of Adventist hospitals is “changing the way we think and act – from self-preservation poor, to enlightened rich.”
The article titled Adventist Health’s risk appetite grows, profiles the system’s move to an increasingly aggressive investment policy as it grows in financial clout.
The 50+ hospital system system with 82,000 employees is set to double revenue over the next seven years and has a growing $6 billion investment portfolio.
The article states that the “overriding purpose of the portfolio is to support the hospitals and care AHS provides in a philosophy encapsulated in its core mission to ‘Extend the healing Ministry of Christ.'”
According to the piece, AHS doesn’t evaluate the success of its portfolio by whether it beats the market or peers but instead by how it boosts the AHS corporate balance sheet and strengthens the organization financially.
Roy said that although AHS has historically been quite cautious in investments, AHS is now more capable of taking on more risk due to its strong financial growth.
This more aggressive approach is not focused on investing in riskier markets, but rather in increasing investment allocations to assets that AHS already owns in a way that increases risk exposure but, according to Roy, remains efficient.
“Think of it like this,” said Roy. “When you have your favourite recipe for chocolate-chip cookies and more people come over to your house, to make more, you don’t just add eggs. You make more using all the ingredients.”
Adventist Health System is a non-profit healthcare organization that operates over 50 hospital campuses within the Southern and Midwestern regions of the United States. Its headquarters is in Altamonte Springs, Florida. It is affiliated with the Adventist Church. According to a recent press release from AHS, all of the network’s wholly owned facilities will be branded as AdventHealth by January 2, 2019.
