Community Health System Ups Hospital Divestitures To 17

Community Health Systems (CHS) is now working on seven transactions to sell 17 hospitals, its home-care business and other real estate. The developing divestitures have combined revenue of about $2 billion and should yield net proceeds of about $1.2 billion. Some of the deals could be announced this quarter with others revealed by the second half of next year. CHS has been divesting assets to reduce a crushing debt of $15 billion, among the highest for investor-owned hospital companies nationally. The company also is bleeding red ink, missing analyst expectations in the third quarter with a net . . .