RRJ to invest $251m in Singapore's Fullerton Health

The agreed transaction is described as a merger with RRJ and it involves a corporate restructuring and a loan arrangement as well as a cash injection. The private equity firm was already Fullerton Health’s largest creditor and Richard Ong, its founder and chairman, is a board member.

More than 85% of Fullerton Health’s shareholders approved the RRJ deal in May. However, in January, Michael Tan and Daniel Chan, co-founders and shareholders in the company, petitioned to have it wound up. This has now been withdrawn, allowing the deal to proceed, and Tan and Chan are relinquishing their board seats and other positions within Fullerton Health.

The company launched a sale process in early 2021, which resulted in board approval of a bid from Platinum Equity, but Tan and Chan opposed it, local media reported. In December 2021, Shanghai Topcare Medical Services announced it had signed a framework agreement to buy the company at a valuation of SGD 700m-SGD 800m. This also came to nothing.

Established in 2010, Fullerton Health has grown its network from 11 clinics in Singapore to more than 500 across eight countries. It serves more than 3m people, offering a combination of primary care and specialty care, as well as healthcare insurance plans aimed at individuals and corporates. The 115-clinic Australia business was sold to Quadrant Private Equity in late 2020.

Since 2012, Fullerton Health has been controlled by Sin Capital, an investment firm run by David Sin, another of the company’s founders. Sin Capital raised a US-listed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in 2019, which went on to complete a merger with US-based Rockley Photonics. The SPAC’s securities registration was terminated last year.

In 2017, Fullerton Health received equity funding from the PE arm of Ping An Insurance, which paid USD 121m to become the second-largest shareholder, according to AVCJ Research.

Michael Lim, chairman of the Fullerton Health board, said in a statement that the settlement with Tan and Chan had been amicable. He added that the company can now “embark on a new chapter of growth, with a stronger balance sheet and a new corporate structure to pursue post-pandemic growth opportunities.”

RRJ is currently deploying its fourth fund, focused on China and Southeast Asia, which reached a first close of undisclosed size in late 2019. The most recent filing, made in early 2020, indicated that USD 225m had been raised. The firm’s third fund closed on USD 4.5bn in 2015.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Healthcare
• Buyouts
• Restructuring
• Singapore
• RRJ Capital