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A local firm battles while others buckleCONTINUED FROM THE FRONT PAGE

ELBERT AULL

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Gordon Chibroski

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Gordon Chibroski

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Staff Writer

SOUTH PORTLAND — A group of managers at IntelliCare has acquired the telemedicine company, preventing a shutdown of what had been a 250-worker business and one of the fastest-growing small companies in the country.

The new ownership team -- a group of 15 managers and senior employees -- renamed the business SironaHealth and took the reigns from IntelliCare's former corporate parent, Medco Health Solutions of New Jersey, on Saturday. It now employs 150 of IntelliCare's workers; the remaining 100 left the company in recent weeks for other jobs or through layoffs.

The transition came three months after Medco announced it was getting out of the medical call-center business and planned to close IntelliCare.

''What we needed to do was not flinch,'' said SironaHealth President Jeff Forbes. ''People have to get creative today if we're going to get through this mess.''

After coming together to work with Medco on the acquisition, the management group obtained IntelliCare's material assets and book of business for less than $1 million, Forbes said. He declined to specify the price.

The state's top economic development official said the news in South Portland is indicative of the hard work some business leaders are willing to put in for employees in tough times. Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner John Richardson said it also is proof that employers still value local workers.

''What it means in this case is that the company is very satisfied with the effectiveness of the work force,'' Richardson said.

The call center provides telephone-based services for health care providers, such as customer satisfaction surveys and health plan enrollment. The company also offers a service that provides health consumers with telephone access to registered nurses, which insurers use to keep costs down.

IntelliCare was founded in 1997 and has appeared on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list of growing companies on multiple occasions.

Medco acquired IntelliCare in 2007 in a package deal that also involved the acquisition of diabetes equipment supplier Liberty Medical.

Medco, a prescription drug benefits manager, never intended to get into the medical call-center business and decided to close IntelliCare after a year, Forbes said.

He said the South Portland business was profitable, but on a much smaller scale than the New Jersey firm sought to manage. Top Medco officials also believed a sale would be a ''long and difficult process'' in the current economy, Forbes said.

Company officials announced the closure in November, saying it would be final at the end of February. The news came as a ''shock'' to IntelliCare employees, said Christine Allen of South Portland, a special projects supervisor at the company.

''We were very broken up about it,'' said Allen, who manages a group of about 20 call-center employees.

Her brother recently lost his job when his employer, a welding company in her hometown of Caribou, closed. IntelliCare's closure would have left 250 employees -- 150 of whom worked remotely, most of them from out of state -- jobless. Shortly after Medco announced it would shed the call center, a group of senior employees and managers set out to buy the business.

Medco officials were reluctant to talk, Forbes said, but they also understood the impact of cutting so many jobs amid a major recession.

''They weren't keen on laying everybody off,'' Forbes said.

He said the ownership team obtained bank financing for the deal from Norway Savings Bank and will sublease its current office space on Southborough Drive from Medco.

Medco officials did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Forbes said the new company, named after a Celtic goddess associated with healing, has so far succeeded at a most crucial part of the transition: convincing IntelliCare's clients to stick around.

He said the deal saved a total of 150 jobs -- 75 in the city and 75 out of state. Medco hired 50 of IntelliCare's 250 employees after it announced plans to close the call center, so the transition resulted in 50 job losses -- about 10 in Maine.

The management and nursing positions pay from $50,000 to $100,000 a year, Forbes said. He declined to say how much the call center employees earn.

Allen, who has worked for the company for more than three years, said her bosses have kept employees updated on their efforts with a steady stream of e-mails over the past few months. Allen said she remained positive throughout the process, but was thrilled when the transition was finally complete.

''There was a huge sense of relief,'' she said.

Staff Writer Elbert Aull can be contacted at 791-6325 or at:

eaull@pressherald.com