Two Polish acquisitions boost Life Healthcare
HOSPITAL group Life Healthcare has acquired two new facilities in Poland as part of its international expansion plans.
The group said yesterday it had bought Sport Klinika, an orthopaedic and rehabilitation services hospital, and Kliniki Kardiologii Allenort, a cardiac care facility, for R250m and R430m respectively.
The acquisitions were facilitated by the group’s Polish subsidiary, Scanmed Multimedis.
Group strategy and development executive Jonathan Lowick said the acquisitions would have no material effect on Life’s earnings in the short term, but were important for its international evolution.
“These are good bolt-on acquisitions,” he said.
Sport Klinika is a 46-bed hospital in Zory, in the Silesia region. It offers outpatient orthopaedic consultations, arthroscopic and endoscopic surgery, a comprehensive rehabilitation programme and the training of medical doctors.
Kliniki Kardiologii Allenort offers comprehensive cardiology services to a population of about 1.6-million funded through the Polish national health insurance. It has six in-patient cardiology facilities. “The acquisitions complement our existing network of healthcare facilities in Poland and represent an important milestone in the progress of our international expansion strategy,” said Life Healthcare group CEO André Meyer.
“Our latest acquisitions will give us a significant footprint in that market, which we are well positioned to manage through our existing management team based in Poland,” he said.
Life ventured into Poland through the acquisition of an 80.7% stake in Scanmed Multimedis in May last year. It has since taken full ownership of Scanmed Multimedis, and through bolt-on acquisitions built a portfolio of services spanning ambulatory, diagnostics and specialist areas such as cardiology and orthopaedics.
Mr Meyer said though the demand for private healthcare in SA remained strong, the market continued to mature and therefore the potential for future growth, especially through acquisitions, would come mainly from international markets. The group has identified emerging countries with high growth potential, such as Poland and India, as its areas of focus.
Mr Lowick said Poland was attractive because it had a fragmented private healthcare market. About 10% of the country’s 38-million population had private health insurance. Public healthcare was funded through a national health insurance system, but the government was keen to contract private providers to offer the service.
Poland is the sixth-largest economy in Europe with average annual gross domestic product growth of 4.3% over the past decade.
“Over a long time, we can build a very significant business in Poland. But that will take time,” Mr Lowick said. Life’s advantage was that it had expertise in acute care while the biggest groups in Poland were in ambulatory services.