Anchorage agrees carve-out from New Zealand's Green Cross Health

The investment comes as Anchorage looks to raise AUD 500m (USD 339m) for its fourth fund, up from AUD 360m in the previous vintage. It also follows the specialist turnaround investor’s acquisition of Australian department store chain David Jones at the end of last year.

Green Cross gave no reason for the divestment, although it noted in a filing that the community health division – which operates under the Access Community Health and Total Care Health Services brands – generated NZD 192.2m in revenue and NZD 5.6m in operating profit for the 12 months ended March 2022. This compares to NZD 670.3m and NZD 54.1m at the group level.

Access Community Health was launched in 1927 with members of the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers – known as “bush nurses” – riding horseback to tend to people in isolated rural communities. In the 2022 financial year, its 3,000 front-line and support staff served 36,000 clients and made 3.8m home visits. This came amid significant pandemic-related disruption.

The community health division sits alongside pharmacy and medical divisions within Green Cross. The pharmacy business is the largest, contributing NZD 367m in revenue for the 12 months ended March 2022. It has 345 stores and 1.9m loyalty programme members. It was responsible for 51% of all New Zealand pharmacies providing COVID-19 vaccinations.

The medical division, which contributed NZD 111m in revenue, comprises a network of 53 medical centres with 329,000 enrolled patients – New Zealand’s largest general practice enrolled patient base. Eight medical centres were added during the 12-month period and Green Cross expects M&A activity to continue.

Corporate carve-outs are a key aspect of Anchorage’s investment strategy: David Jones was acquired from Woolworths Holdings, and two months before that, the firm bought the New Zealand business of childcare provider Evolve Education. This came on the heels of an exit from rolling stock leasing company Rail First Asset Management, which was carved out from Sasser Family Holding in 2019.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Healthcare
• Buyouts
• Restructuring
• Anchorage Capital Partners
• Australia
• New Zealand