As suitors circle Healthscope, its management mulls a different path

Sydney Morning Herald

6 days ago

The sales process for Healthscope's failed private hospital business kicks off in earnest this Monday with up to 30 potential suitors due to file their tentative offers for its 37 Australian hospitals, employing 19,000 staff nationally.
But the non-binding offers won't include a bid from Healthscope's current management, who are contemplating a scheme to convert the company into a not-for-profit entity.
It would mirror the resurrection of Australia's largest child care provider Goodstart Early learning, from the ashes of the collapsed ABC Learning empire, as a not-for-profit provider.
Healthscope insiders have confirmed reports in the Australian Financial Review last week that its chief executive, Tino La Spina, is working on the plan as an alternative to a sale of the business to either commercial interests or other Australian not-for-profit operators like St Vincent's Health Australia.
Healthscope declined to comment. People with knowledge of the proposal, who are not authorised to discuss the matter, confirmed that the plans are not advanced enough to put in a non-binding indicative offer by the Monday, July 21 deadline.
But La Spina's team have been consulting with the receivers from McGrathNicol who are managing the sale, with a view to putting in a proposal during the second stage of the sales process where interested parties are expected to lodge binding offers for the business.
This includes local not-for-profit operators, ASX-listed Ramsay Health Care, privately owned Healthe Care and a potential debt-for-equity swap that could see lenders like UK-based Polus Capital take control.
The receivers are acting for lenders which are owed $1.7 billion, according to documents lodged with the corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). Australia's Big Four banks are among the lenders which will be hit with significant losses as the sales price is not expected to get anywhere near what is owed to them.
The debt includes $52 million owed to the former owner, Canadian financial giant, Brookfield, which had $2 billion in equity wiped out when the group collapsed into administration earlier this year.