The Hospital Market in the UAE Heats Up

Healthcare deals, particularly for hospitals, are heating up in the United Arab Emirates. On December 14, NMC Health, the country’s largest private healthcare company, announced its acquisition of Al Zahra Hospital in Sharja. Al Zahra is one of the largest private hospitals in the UAE, operating 137 active inpatient beds. It serves approximately 400,000 outpatients and 23,000 inpatient bed days per year. Its owner, Gulf Medical Projects Company, agreed to a purchase price of Dhiram2.1 billion, or approximately $571.7 million. That works out to nearly $4.2 million per bed, but if the claim that the hospital had $130 million in revenue in 2015, the revenue multiple of 4.4x... Read More »

Behavioral Health Deals Set to Top 2015

Behavioral health care has been a hot sector for investors in recent years. After slumping to just eight announced transactions in 2010, deal volume soared steadily to 40 transactions in 2015. As of this writing, the sector has recorded 40 transactions in 2016, with two weeks left in the year. Even if no new deals surface before January 1, we expect the deal momentum to keep building through 2017, thanks to the tailwinds provided by the passage this month of the 21st Century Cures Act. The bipartisan bill, signed by President Obama, authorizes $1 billion in state grants over the next two years to address opioid abuse and other addictions. Most of that money goes to treatment facilities,... Read More »

Abbott to Alere: It’s You, Not Me

The party’s about over for the $5.8 billion Abbott (NYSE: ABT) acquisition of Alere Inc. (NYSE: ALR). Everything was bright and rosy when Abbott agreed to pay $56.00 per share for the point-of-care diagnostics and services company. Now, the $177 million termination fee Abbott faces to get out of the deal looks pretty cheap. In April, Abbott reportedly offered Alere $50 million to terminate the deal, but got no takers. The trouble began almost immediately. The day of the announcement, February 1, Alere’s stock price shot up nearly 46%, to $54.11. But later that month,  it announced would delay filing its 2015 financial results with securities regulators due to revenue recognition... Read More »

Biotechnology Deals Will Surpass 2015’s Record

Deal volume in the Biotechnology sector is poised to surpass last year’s record-setting 160 transactions. With two weeks left in 2016, deal volume has reached 159 transactions. The activity in this sector shows no signs of abating, and will probably carry through the first half of 2017, at least. Big Pharma companies are driving the M&A activity, as they actively compete for promising drug candidates to bolster their aging pipelines. A case in point is a deal that hasn’t been announced yet, but that the industry is watching with interest. French pharma company Sanofi (NYSE: SNY) is reported to be deep into acquisition talks with Swiss... Read More »