Surgery center chain Symbion is investing in the Great Falls Clinic, a physician-owned facility in that Montana town. It's Symbion's first venture into The Treasure State, which is now the 27th state in which Symbion does business.

Meridian Surgical Partners has snapped up a majority stake in a Central Ohio surgery center that opened its doors four years ago. The deal gives Meridian, which is led by Buddy Bacon, its 13th center in its 11th state; the company is developing three others.

"We are extremely optimistic about our new partnership with Eastwind Surgical," said David F. "Buddy" Bacon Jr., CEO of Meridian Surgical Partners, in the release. "The physician-partners, management and staff have created a very impressive facility and have an impeccable reputation for providing the highest quality of care to their patients. We are pleased to be working with them."

Deutsche Bank Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Bankim Chadha has compiled a list of the top 50 leveraged buyout candidates in the Standard & Poor's 1500 Index. Among them is locally based surgery center chain AmSurg, which has a market cap of about $800 million and a debt-to-equity ratio of less than 50 percent.

AmSurg shareholders last week defied their company's recommendation and voted by a margin of almost 3-to-1 to change the way they elect directors of the surgery center operator. Several New York City pension funds had pushed for the company to let directors be elected if they receive a majority of the votes cast at AmSurg's annual meeting, but the company's board had said its current plurality method was good enough. The investor vote is not binding, but in an email, AmSurg CFO Claire Gulmi said the result "was very clear and our board will begin to look at and address this issue at our next board meeting in the fall."

Ater conferring with its compensation consultant, the board of AmSurg recently gave Chris Holden, the surgery center chain's boss since October 2007, a 16 percent hike in his salary. The $91,000 raise — search here for "2011 executive" — was justified, the board's compensation committee, because Holden's 2010 base "was not competitive with the base salaries paid to chief executive officers at comparable companies."

The raise will pay off in another way for Holden: AmSurg last month said it also had upped his maximum bonus. The base for that payout? Holden's salary.