Offer of €175m for Blackrock Clinic | The Post

An international consortium has made an offer of €175 million to buy the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin.

The offer is said to be under serious consideration by some shareholders in the private hospital.

The offer was made by Emerald Health Care Capital, which was recently incorporated, and a consortium of co-investors including DJR Global Healthcare Capital LLC, Moor Park Capital Partners and Barclays Bank.

Shareholders in the Blackrock Clinic include orthopaedic surgeon Jimmy Sheehan and his brother Joe, who is based in the US. Nuclear medicine specialist Dr George Duffy, developer John Flynn and beef producer Larry Goodman are the other main shareholders.

In 2009, the hospital had a turnover of €84million and generated a pre-tax profit of €12.3 million, a decrease of €1.65 million compared to 2008. The company had net debt of €45.8 million at the end of 2009, and that debt is not being acquired by the purchaser.

The sale would give existing shareholders a sizeable windfall. British healthcare giant Bupa took a majority stake in the hospital in 2000.Bupa sold out of the clinic in 2006,in a deal that valued the hospital then at around €60 million.

The Blackrock Clinic was built in 1983 and is undergoing a €100 million expansion and refurbishment programme that will bring the number of beds to 160.The expansion has allowed the opening of a new emergency department, a new purposebuilt day surgery unit catering for up to 100 patients a day, and two new operating theatres, resulting in a 40 per cent increase in availability of theatre space. The clinic has nearly 500 staff.

Some shareholders in the hospital have invested in other private hospitals, including the Galway Clinic, the Hermitage in Lucan and Cork Medical Centre, which was liquidated earlier this year after it failed to secure an agreement to cover VHI customers.

Most patients are financed through the main private health insurers, with the state-owned VHI the hospital’s biggest ‘customer’.

The private healthcare sector is in a state of flux, with a number of new ventures - including the Whitfield Clinic and Cork Medical Centre running into financial trouble earlier this year.

DJR Global Healthcare Capital LLC is an equity real estate investment trust. It invests in the real estate markets of the United States, India and Europe.

The fund primarily invests in the healthcare sector.

Moor Park Capital Partners acts as an adviser to a number of real estate-backed investment vehicles and was recently involved in the completion of a sale and leaseback transaction with Spire Hospitals in Britain.

via thepost.ie

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