at hma there's been what we would call a lost decade.annualized return of zero. if they use their money for other things they could have had a higher and better return. so the problem is not near term, it's not recent. it's over a long period of time. we think some of the root causes of that underperformance are because the company could demand a higher standard of financial management and excellence. we think that the company could allocate its cash flow better. boards and financial managements are responsible for having a long-term capital plan to minimize the cost of capital as well as to have a long-term capital allocation plan -- >> and these guys don't? and they haven't? >> we don't believe that they have done an effective job. as a matter of fact, when we stack up all the hospital public companies, what we find is that 100% of their free cash flow went to acquisitions and that 0% of the free cash flow went to share repurchase when they could have bought back their own stock at exceedingly low multiples yet they were buying hospita

hma out there with its board and management moved into a sale process. see who else other than perhaps community health shows -- community shows up for hma. vanguard taken out by tenet. talking about what about eight times 2013 ebida. >> not bad. >> tenet spent a long time cleaning up its track record in terms of compliance. delevering its balance sheet. it is in a position to start to help consolidate. there you can see some of the key metrics on the deal itself. >> that's a good deal if -- for the affordable care act. >> yeah. >> united health, wellpoint, stocks have held up so well. people are starting to really get ready for at fordable care act and profit from it. >> we'll see. tomorrow a big hearing on the hill in which they'll look at medicare and specifically also some of the provisions of obama care, as others call it. >> some guys who are -- hate it still? >> it's on the house side. >> oh the house side, yeah. >> fireworks there. >> wow. look at that move up on vanguard. >> that is sensational. >> yeah. is it a big move up. not high multiple. t

i want to point out a mover, and hma is the symbol or the health management associates, and it is, aserates a lot of the general acute hospitals and other health care facilities and generally in nonurban areas, and a shareholder in the form of glenview capital management, and run by a friend of mine i should point out to be fair, and that is larry robins who has had a significant stake or i should say always had an interest in the hospital-related companies, but in this one, glenview is getting active in part responding to some of the things that have gone on at the company for example putting in a poison pill when it said and by the way, in error when it said that glenview might go up at 75% stake, and that is not correct, they remain at 15.24%, and they said, get rid of the pill. we can't go up from here. now, they can or i should say any shareholders can act by written consent, and there is no stag guard for it. this is a company that no longer has a ceo at this point or he will be stepping saside. jim a lot of questions about the hma and the key one being is there or could there b

i wanted to share that on hma and there is the possibility of glenview trying to take out the entiret activist fund, but it is active. >> high end, high end group of guys. >> moving on to realty pharma, and elan has put itself up for sale, but realty pharma is out. they have dropped the lawsuit, and the interesting thing is that it did not have to happen. they put conditions in it, and the condition was that the shareholders would not approve a $200 million buyback and it would have gone differently and pharma would have held up if it weren't for that condition, and some confusion about the date of the actual shareholder vote, and interesting when you see that. elan is done. moving on to cable deutscheland, and that is important to compete with vodafone. i talked with john malone, liberty global's chairman a month ago when we sat down for a long interview, because the prospect of buying it is out there. and the question is was it, can it get it through german regulatory authorities? >> there would be enormous sinnynergies in creating a germ language entity that would cover all of ger