Remgro takes a healthy slice of care firm Spire
SOUTH African investment firm Remgro acquired a 29.9 per cent stake in UK private healthcare company Spire in a deal worth £431.7m yesterday.
Remgro, the 41.4 per cent majority shareholder in Mediclinic, South Africa’s largest private hospital owner, bought the shares at 360p from funds managed by Cinven. The intention is for Mediclinic to purchase the stake from Remgro in the near future.
Mediclinic, which has operations in the UAE and Switzerland, plans to raise funds for the acquisition via a rights issue worth 10bn rand (£522m).
Mediclinic boss Danie Meintjes said Remgro’s deal would allow the company to diversify, making the most of the growing market for private healthcare. Both companies have confirmed they have no intention to purchase the whole of Spire.
Robert Roger, chief executive of Spire, said: “This is an exceptional opportunity for us to gain a strategic investor who understands our growth ambitions as we develop our asset base to meet the significant capacity growth we expect for the UK private healthcare sector in the medium to long term.”
Remgro, or in due course Mediclinic, will have the right to nominate one non-executive director to the board of Spire, provided they still hold more than 15 per cent of shares. Cinven’s residual shareholding in Spire is 8.4 per cent of the issued share capital.
The deal saw Spire’s shares increase by 10.94 per cent yesterday.