Global one-offs costly for Ramsay Health Care

AUSTRALIA’S largest private hospital operator, Ramsay Health Care, has reported a 20.6 per cent fall in full-year profit after recording about $150 million of writedowns and restructuring costs.

Ramsay, which operates 73 hospitals and day surgery units across the nation, yesterday reported that net profit for the 12 months to June 30 had slipped to $388.3 million.

That is down from $488.9 million a year earlier as Ramsay was hit with $122 million of asset writedowns and lease provisioning in the UK and $29.9 million of restructuring costs in France.

Excluding the one-off costs, underlying net profit rose 6.8 per cent to $579.3 million. Global revenue rose 5.4 per cent to $9.18 billion, of which the Australian business contributed $4.9 billion, up 5.5 per cent.

Ramsay Health Care managing director Craig McNally said the company had delivered a solid result despite National Health Service volumes falling at its UK hospitals.

“Our FY18 (financial year 2018) results were impacted by the significant downturn in NHS volumes in our UK business as well as softer growth rates in our Australian business, and the decision to temporarily slow down the rollout of the Ramsay Pharmacy franchise network while we invest in infrastructure and resources to successfully scale this franchise business for the long term,” Mr McNally said.

Ramsay declared a final, fully-franked dividend of 86.5c, which was 5c higher than the previous year.

Shares in the company closed 6.3 per cent lower at $54.48.