Why cutting edge Spire deserves ‘buy’ treatment...
The investment column that makes the most of your money
GLANCING at the menu of prices on Spire Healthcare’s website is enough to put you off your lunch.
But its list of treatments is a sharp reminder of the myriad concerns – both health and cosmetic – that can now be taken care of by writing a cheque.
From breast augmentation (£5,100), vasectomy reversal (£3,225) and gastric bands (£6,350) to eye bag removal (£2,600) and hip replacements (£13,276), there is a world of opportunity from Spire’s growing list of off-the-shelf surgery to whet the interest of consumers and investors alike.
Over the past 12 months, Spire has built the list of guide prices from a handful of options to 75 procedures from what some may frankly consider frivolous (facelift at £4,100 and nose job at £4,724) to the more serious.
The medical menu now includes prostate laser surgery (£4,835) and other procedures that may have more of an impact on your life rather than just helping you to lose a few pounds or make you want to gaze in the mirror more frequently. Customers pay a £100 consultation fee to have their needs and the guide price discussed and confirmed. Any pressing health issues and lifestyle complications can affect the complexity of the procedure and the final price. Despite offering only a guide to prices, the company’s move is bold, establishing some transparency in a market where opacity puts many off before they have even started.
‘What we want to provide is certainty, both in terms of the cost and the timing of procedures, and customers are responding to that,’ says Spire executive chairman Garry Watts, who has been with the company since 2011. Watts has been quoted saying he would be the ‘last person on the planet to run down the NHS’, given the scale and complexity of this vital national resource. But with an aging population and an increasing funding gap, Spire’s price list clearly shows where it expects to help cut waiting lists. Spire also belongs to a select group of consumer firms that can directly tap into the over50s market. As with other firms marking out those in the throes of retirement planning, pension reforms have opened up a world of opportunities. A new hip could be a better investment than a cruise round the Caribbean or a new car when your old one still has a few miles left in it.
Meanwhile, speculation continues that its 29.9 per cent shareholder, Johannesburg’s Mediclinic, might snap up the whole firm. The shares have fallen from their 400p peak reached on the rumours last month and stand at 379p. But broker Berenberg has a target price of 395p and a buy rating on the shares.
The company was formed when private equity firm Cinven acquired Bupa’s 25 hospitals in 2007 and merged them with Classic Hospitals and Thames Valley Hospital, and then rebranded them all as Spire. The firm was listed in July 2014.
The number of people paying for operations is accelerating and the proportion of the firm’s £900million turnover arising from such consumers has doubled to 20 per cent since 2007. But sales are now rising at double-digit rates, Watts says, and business in that area looks set to continue to grow for some time. Around half the company’s business is still from medical insurance clients and about 30 per cent from the NHS. The latter rose at a healthy rate in the first half, boosted by NHS patients choosing to have their operations at Spire hospitals under the eReferral scheme.
Spire runs the UK’s second-biggest chain of private health facilities, with 39 hospitals and 13 clinics. It is investing £175 million in further capacity, including new hospitals in Manchester and Nottingham in the coming months and about 20 new operating theatres.
Midas verdict: Spire is pushing the boundaries of consumer medical treatment with significant investment and the shadow of its major shareholder will help to underpin the price. Buy.