SMBI Symbion (MM)

Symbion, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMBI), an owner and operator of short stay surgical facilities, today announced that it had signed three separate agreements with healthcare systems for the development of surgery centers in Florida, Texas and Minnesota. Symbion will have a minority ownership and a management agreement in all three centers. Terms of the transactions were not disclosed. Symbion signed an agreement with an affiliate of the Adventist Health System for the development of a freestanding surgery center in Orange City, Florida. The center, scheduled to open at the end of 2007, will include three operating rooms and one procedure room. The Company also signed an agreement with King�s Daughters Hospital and a group of surgeons affiliated with King�s Daughters Clinic to develop a freestanding surgery center in Temple, Texas. Expected to open in the first quarter of 2008, the center will include two operating rooms and one procedure room. The third agreement is with Fairview Health Services and University of Minnesota Physicians, both of Minneapolis, Minnesota, to develop a freestanding surgery center located in Maple Grove, Minnesota. When the center opens in the later half of 2007, it will include six operating rooms and two procedure rooms. Commenting on the announcement, Richard E. Francis, Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of Symbion, said, �We are very pleased to enter into these agreements with three well-respected healthcare systems and affiliated physicians. These transactions provide great momentum to our development activities for 2007.� Symbion, Inc., headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, owns and operates a network of 59 short stay surgical facilities in 23 states. The Company�s centers provide non-emergency surgical procedures across many specialties. This press release contains forward-looking statements based on management�s current expectations and projections about future events and trends that management believes may affect the Company�s financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. The words �anticipate,� �believe,� �continue,� �estimate,� �expect,� �intend,� �may,� �plan,� �will� and similar expressions are generally intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements, including those regarding the Company�s growth and continued success, have been included in reliance on the �safe harbor� provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ from the expectations expressed in the statements. Many of these factors are beyond the ability of the Company to control or predict. These factors include, without limitation: (i) the Company�s dependence on payments from third-party payors, including government health care programs and managed care organizations; (ii) the Company�s ability to acquire and develop additional surgery centers on favorable terms; (iii) numerous business risks in acquiring and developing additional surgery centers, including potential difficulties in operating and integrating such surgery centers; (iv) efforts to regulate the construction, acquisition or expansion of health care facilities; (v) the risk that the Company�s revenues and profitability could be adversely affected if it fails to attract and maintain good relationships with the physicians who use its facilities; (vi) the Company�s ability to comply with applicable laws and regulations, including health care regulations, corporate governance laws and financial reporting standards; (vii) risks related to pending or future heightened regulation of specialty hospitals which could restrict the Company�s ability to operate its facilities licensed as hospitals and could adversely impact its reimbursement revenues; (viii) the risk of changes to physician self-referral laws that may require the Company to restructure some of its relationships, which could result in a significant loss of revenues and divert other resources; (ix) the Company�s significant indebtedness; (x) the intense competition for physicians, strategic relationships, acquisitions and managed care contracts, which may result in a decline in the Company�s revenues, profitability and market share; (xi) the geographic concentration of the Company�s operations, which makes the Company particularly sensitive to regulatory, economic and other conditions in certain states; (xii) the Company�s dependence on its senior management; (xiii) the Company�s ability to enhance operating efficiencies at its surgery centers and to control costs as the volume of cases performed at the Company�s facilities changes; (xiv) efforts by certain states to reduce payments from workers� compensation payors for services provided to injured workers; (xv) risks associated with the practice of some of the Company�s centers in billing for services �out-of-network�, including the risk that out-of-network payments by some third-party payors may be reduced or eliminated; and (xvi) other risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In light of the significant uncertainties inherent in the forward-looking statements contained in this press release, you should not place undue reliance on them. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or to make any other forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.