International legal practice Norton Rose has advised a consortium of investors on the acquisition of a portfolio of 12 UK private hospitals from Spire Healthcare Group.
Spire is the second largest private hospital provider in the UK and runs hospitals across the country. The buying consortium comprises Malaysia’s Employees Provident Fund (EPF), affiliated investment funds of Och-Ziff Capital Management Group and Moor Park Capital Partners. Moor Park Capital also advised the Investors on this transaction.
The aggregate price for the acquisition was £700 million including debt finance provided by Standard Chartered Bank. The acquired hospitals will be leased back to Spire Healthcare Group to operate under long leases.
EPF have been a client of Norton Rose since 2010 and Norton Rose have acted for them on a number of major UK investments, the most recent being the IR Battersea Power Station acquisition (in consortium) in July 2012.
Practice Head of Real Estate Lindsay Morgan said: “Norton Rose was delighted to represent longstanding client EPF and new clients Och-Ziff and Moor Park Capital in this transaction. It was a complex and interesting deal and required our various practice areas to work together closely to meet challenging deadlines throughout. We were very pleased to see a successful conclusion for the investors.”
The transaction was led by corporate and real estate partners Chris Randall and Lindsay Morgan, with Duncan Hubbard leading the banking team. Chris Randall was assisted by Malgorzata Zietara, Emma Bradshaw, Lily Kotsana, Sarah Mathers, Alex Green and Sonita Grigoriadou.
The real estate team included also partner Neil Biswas. Peter Taylor, Leah Wilman, Michelle Savitz and Alex Wills assisted. Duncan Hubbard was assisted by Gemma Long, William Lo, Chet Behl and Ben Rodger.
Standard Chartered were advised by Allen & Overy and Spire Healthcare Group by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
