Laidlaw Inc., Canadian transportation company, bought out Boston’s first and largest independence ambulance company, Brewster, for an undisclosed amount.
Laidlaw announced the deal on Thursday, which added 150 ambulances and 500 employees to their subsidiary, Medtrans New England Inc., based in Wakefield, Mass.
Brewster provided ambulance service to major Boston hospitals such as Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Faulkner Hospital and Boston Medical Center.
“[The deal] brings us into markets we were not previously in,” Bruce Wallace, managing director of Medtrans, said, according to the Boston Business Journal.
Medtrans will keep Brewster’s staff, including president George Brewster II, the company’s former president. He has not decided on a formal title as of yet, however he does plan to advise Laidlaw in developing their role in Massachusetts’ ambulance network.
Laidlaw also recently bought Colorado-based American Medical Response Inc. (AMR) for $1.12 billion.
The deal follows a recent trend in the ambulance business of consolidation. Larger companies are increasingly buying up smaller, independently run companies to expand their territory and be more cost efficient, according to Ellen Lutch Trager, director of health care strategies at Brown, Rudnick, Freed & Gesmer.
The Canadian powerhouse now has three ambulance companies in Massachusetts, including the two newly acquired companies and CareLine Inc. of Santa Ana, Calif., which also has a Massachusetts division.
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