KV Asia buys Singapore nursing home business

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Founded in 1993 by Soo-Sam Tan, Orange Valley has a staff of more than 500, offering nursing home services, home care services and ambulance services. Its facilities are located within reach of hospitals and housing estates.

"With its focus on high-quality resident care and established management systems, we believe Orange Valley is well-positioned to serve the needs of the elderly and capture the growing demand for quality aged care services in Singapore and the region," Karam Butalia, executive chairman of KV Asia, said in a statement.

Singapore has one of the fastest aging populations in the world, and will have to cope with 870,000 elderly people in 2030. At current fertility rates and without adding new citizens or permanent residents, Singaporeans aged 65 and over could account for one in three members of the population. The median age of the resident population will also rise from the current 39 years, to 49 in 2030 and 55 in 2050.

Long-term care services for the elderly are provided mainly through voluntary welfare organizations and private operators under a mix of funding schemes still largely led by the government.

The government announced plans two years ago to build 10 new nursing homes by 2016, adding 3,300 beds to the existing capacity of 9,000 in state-controlled facilities. Since the 2000s, the government has also been trying to shift the more of the burden to private operators.

Last year, Tan sought to block AMP Capital's sale of a stake in Domain Principal Group, a leading Australian provider of residential aged care services, to Singapore-listed G.K. Goh Holdings. A court summons claimed the deal was in violation of an agreement that prevented G.K. Goh, as a shareholder in Orange Valley, from investing in a competing business. The summons was dismissed in January.

KV Asia was founded in 2010 by Butalia, the former global head of Standard Chartered Private Equity, and Vibhav Panandiker, another SCPE alumnus, but more recently a managing director with J.P. Morgan Private Capital Asia. The firm closed its debut Southeast Asia-focused fund last year at $263 million.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Support services
• Buyouts
• Consumer
• KV Asia
• Southeast Asia
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• buyout
• Singapore