US investment fund consortium willing to buy Australian hospital operator

A group led by KKR & Co made an unsolicited near-$15 billion bid for Ramsay Health Care Ltd on April 20, underlining buyout funds’ appetite for healthcare assets and pushing the Australian company’s shares by up as much as 30%, Report informs referring to Bloomberg.

If successful, the takeover would rank as the biggest private equity-backed buyout of an Australian company, and would be the biggest deal in Australia this year, nearly doubling activity, Refinitiv data shows.

Ramsay said in a statement it would provide the KKR-led group with due diligence on a non-exclusive basis and talks were at a preliminary stage.

The deal would represent a substantial return for the Paul Ramsay Foundation (PRF), Ramsay’s biggest shareholder with an 18.8% stake, which said it would support the offer.

The A$88 cash per share proposal, worth A$20.05 billion ($14.8 billion) in total, represents a nearly 37% premium to Ramsay’s April 19 closing price of A$64.40. The enterprise value of the deal is A$28 billion, sources said.

The offer sent the shares up by as much as 30% to A$83.55, the highest in nearly six years, and their biggest intraday jump to date, before paring gains to close up 24% at A$80.

Ramsay operates hospitals and clinics across 10 countries in three continents, with a network of more than 530 locations. It has 72 private hospitals and day surgery units in Australia and operates clinics and primary care units in about 350 locations across six countries in Europe.