TPG nears US$300m deal to buy IHH's education arm

[KUALA LUMPUR] Private equity firm TPG Capital Asia is nearing an agreement to buy IHH Healthcare's medical education arm in a deal valued at about US$300 million, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

IHH, Asia's biggest hospital group by market value, is in advanced talks with TPG on the divestment of International Medical University, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the process is private.

A deal could be announced as early as this month, said the people. IHH started reaching out to prospective buyers last year, Bloomberg News has reported.

Discussions are still ongoing and there is no certainty that IHH will proceed with a transaction, the people said. A representative for TPG declined to comment. A spokesperson for IHH also declined to comment and said the company would update if there are any material developments.

IHH, which is backed by Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co and Malaysian state investment firm Khazanah Nasional, is listed on both the Kuala Lumpur and Singapore stock exchanges. The company runs 80 hospitals in 10 countries across Asia and Europe, according to its website.

IMU, founded in 1992, is Malaysia's first private medical college. It offers more than 20 health professional programmes ranging from pre-university to postgraduate across fields from medicine to dentistry to more than 3,000 students, according to its website.

The unit generated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation of 75.7 million ringgit (S$24.4 million) in 2020, slightly lower than 87.2 million ringgit in the previous year, according to IHH's latest annual report. BLOOMBERG