Buyout group Carlyle is selling Swiss-headquartered clinic chain Ameos in a deal that will see the company’s founder and private equity firm Intermediate Capital Group (ICG) take full control, people close to the matter said.
Founder and Chief Executive Axel Paeger will get a majority in the company’s voting rights, with a minority to be held by ICG and other co-investors, they said.
ICG, which was already an Ameos creditor, and the other investors will inject preference capital, mezzanine capital as well as debt into Ameos, allowing Carlyle and co-investor Quadriga to exit in steps by year-end, they added. The deal value could not be immediately obtained.
Carlyle, Paeger and Ameos declined to comment, while ICG was not immediately available for comment.
Ameos runs 96 acute general care and psychiatric hospitals and last year posted a net loss of 2 million euros ($2.4 million) on sales of 1.03 billion euros, after posting a 10.4 million net profit on revenue of 899 million in 2019.
Carlyle invested in Ameos in 2011, with peer investor Quadriga Capital and founder and Paeger retaining stakes.
German healthcare services are still dominated by municipal or church-run clinics and regionally-focused companies, but consolidation efforts have been gathering pace to attain economies of scale and rein in costs.
Ameos, which employs 15,700 staff in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, has been continuously acquiring hospitals in recent years, but occasionally hit antitrust roadblocks, as Carlyle also owns a stake in German clinic chain Schoen Kliniken.
Like most clinics, Ameos has suffered from a fall in the volume of medical surgeries in 2020 as healthcare service firms kept medical staff free for COVID-19 cases and patients opted to delay non-critical treatment.
Source: Reuters.com