Fresenius to buy Spanish Hospital network for 5.76 billion euros

[NEW YORK] Fresenius SE, Europe's biggest publicly traded health-care provider, is buying a Spanish hospital group for 5.76 billion euros (S$8.73 billion) in its largest acquisition as it seeks to expand its German network across Europe. The stock soared the most in more than a year.

Shares worth about 400 million euros will be issued to Victor Madera, the founder of IDC Salud Holding S.L.U., and the rest of the transaction will be funded with debt, according to a statement on Monday from Bad Homburg, Germany-based Fresenius. Spain's largest private hospital company, also known as Quironsalud, is 58 per cent owned by the London-based private equity firm CVC Capital Partners Ltd., with the rest held by its management.

The transaction highlights the international ambitions of Fresenius Chief Executive Officer Stephan Sturm, who took the helm on July 1. The deal with Quironsalud gives the Fresenius Helios unit, which is the largest hospital company in Germany, control of 43 hospitals across Spain, with projected 2016 revenue of about 2.5 billion euros and profit expected to grow more than 10 per cent next year. Helios accounted for about 20 per cent of Fresenius's sales last year.

Shares of Fresenius rose as much as 5.8 per cent, the most since August 2015, and were up 4 per cent to 68.82 euros at 10:25 a.m. in Frankfurt. The stock has returned 4.7 per cent this year, compared with a 0.4 per cent gain in Germany's benchmark DAX Index.

Madera, Quironsalud's CEO, will join Fresenius after the transaction. He is required to hold the 6.1 million shares he will receive as part of the transaction for at least two years.

The acquisition should result in savings of about 50 million euros a year and will be "highly accretive" to net income next year, Fresenius said. The company expects the deal to close by the end of the first quarter in 2017, and will update its guidance for next year. Quironsalud's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization will probably rise from a projected 460 million euros to 480 million euros this year to between 520 million euros and 550 million euros next year, the companies said.

The deal also solves a problem of where to seek large-scale growth as looming parliamentary elections and cheap debt combine to make hospital privatizations less likely in Germany. Fresenius had signaled its desire to expand elsewhere in Europe, and "the big question was when and where," said Ulrich Huwald, a Hamburg-based analyst with Warburg Research.

Sturm had served as the health-care company's chief financial officer since 2005. During his tenure, Fresenius created the biggest hospital network in Germany by buying rival Rhoen-Klinikum AG for 3.07 billion euros in a deal completed two years ago. Shortly after Sturm took over as CEO, the company's talks to acquire Pfizer Inc.'s pumps and devices business stalled over price, according to people familiar with the matter.

Fresenius is one of the world's largest providers of kidney dialysis and also supplies home infusion-therapy services. The company plans a conference call to discuss the Quironsalud deal at 2 pm local time.

Private equity firm CVC is perhaps best known as one of the owners of auto racing league Formula One. The investment firm, a former unit of Citigroup Inc., is considering selling the racing business for as much as $10 billion. Its owns a 35 per cent stake.

BLOOMBERG