BRITAIN’S biggest private hospital chain is trying to negotiate a rent holiday, months after a consortium of hedge funds seized its properties.
The operating company behind General Healthcare Group (GHG), which trades as BMI Healthcare, is in talks with landlords about delaying rent payments on its treatment centres, City sources said.
In 2006, GHG was acquired in a debt-laden buyout by private equity firm Apax Partners, South African healthcare giant Netcare, and the property outfit London & Regional. At the time, the owners separated the hospital’s operating company from the ownership of the buildings, loading the properties with loans.
The structure of the deal later caused problems for the owners, which started crisis talks with lenders in October 2013. A group of hedge funds, led by American giant KKR, seized control of GHG’s properties late last year.
GHG’s operators and its landlords are now negotiating how much rent will be paid to the property company, City sources said. Under consideration is a “rent holiday”, which could see the operating company get a reprieve of several months.
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BMI would “not comment on speculation about commercial negotiations we may or may not be engaged in”.
BMI employs about 9,000 people, running clinics including the Esperance in Eastbourne and the Beaumont in Bolton. The company cares for 276,000 in-patients a year, with about a third of its business coming from the NHS, and two-thirds from private medical insurers.