A German healthcare group has pulled out of the bidding for the Irish clinic chain Mater Private.
Fresenius Medical Care had been in talks over the past fortnight with Mater Private’s majority owner Capvest, which is selling the chain with the help of the investment bank Rothschild, according to reports in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung which cited sources close to the deal.
Capvest, a London-based venture capital firm headed by the Irishman Seamus Fitzpatrick, bought the clinic chain for €350 million at the height of the buyout boom in 2007 and it may now be valued at €500 million, the newspaper said. Neither FMC nor Capvest was available to comment.
AMP Capital, an Australian investment house with a small operation in Dublin, has also been linked with a deal for Mater Private. The Sydney-based group was one of up to six bidders circling Mater, which has hospitals in Dublin and Cork.
Macquarie, the Australian investment bank, is also among the bidders but Netcare, a South African group that bid for Mater last year, is not believed to be in the running, according to a report in the Sunday Times last month. Carlyle Capital Ireland, the Irish-American private equity fund, was believed to be on the shortlist of bidders in March but is reported to be no longer actively involved in the process.
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According to the Sunday Times, Capvest has been mulling a sale of the group since March 2013, when it conducted a strategic review of the investment.
Last year Mr Fitzpatrick proposed a merger between Mater and the Hermitage, a private hospital part-owned by Larry Goodman, the country’s biggest beef processor. The merger would have created one of the largest private healthcare operators in the state, with 400 beds, 19 operating theatres and speciality services. Hermitage did not progress with the talks.