UK/South Africa news

 

General Healthcare considers £1bn flotation

 

General Healthcare Group are understood to be considering a £1bn-plus stock market listing in the next few months.

 

Several banks including Citigroup and Goldman Sachs are understood to have been mandated to look at an initial public offering of the health care arm of the company which is owned by South African group Netcare, private equity firm Apax Partners and two property investors, London and Regional and Brockton Capita.

GHG, which operates 67 hospitals and treats more than 1.25m patients a year in the UK, was acquired by Johannesburg-listed Netcare and the funds from rival private equity firm BC Partners for £2.2bn in 2006. GHG's health care business includes the BMI Healthcare, the largest independent provider of private health care in the UK, with over 60 hospitals nationwide, handling over 250,000 in-patient and 1m out-patient visits each year.

Under Johannesburg-listed Netcare's ownership and the other funds, GHG increased the number of hospitals in its possession in 2008 when it acquired nine acute care hospitals from Nuffield.

The group's earnings (before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) rose from £203.9m to £220.6m on revenues up 7.6pc to £832m in the year to September 2009 following an increase in insured patients and in referrals from the National Health Service.

 

Source Daily Telegraph