Australia's Crescent to buy Healthscope pathology business

The transaction, which comprises cash proceeds of A$92.5 million and a promissory note worth A$12.5 million, will also see the transfer of six skin clinics from Healthscope's Medical Centre operations to Crescent.

Healthscope's Australian pathology operations consist of about 550 collection centers and 31 pathology laboratories located in Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales and the Northern Territory. According to a stock market disclosure, the pathology operations and the skin clinics reported combined earnings of A$2.4 million, and contributed to 1% of the Group's overall EBITDA in the first half of 2015.

In the company's most recent financial report for the six months ended December 2014, the group announced an EBITDA of A$188 million and a net income of A$58.5 million, against A$170 million and A$27.8 million for the same period a year ago, respectively. The pathology division alone generated a profit of A$40,000 for the six months, against A$2.8 million a year ago.

Healthscope - which was taken private by TPG Capital and The Carlyle Group in 2010, and subsequently re-listed in 2014 - previously tried to sell part of its Australian pathology business to Sonic Healthcare in 2012.

Sonic originally agreed to buy Healthscope's pathology operations in Queensland and Western Australia, but eventually ended up with just the latter assets after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) refused to approve the sale of the former. The Queensland business was acquired by Primary Health Care in February.

Crescent is now investing out of its fifth Australian and New Zealand-focused fund which reached the hard cap of A$675 million in December after only 10 weeks in the market.

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• Topics
• Buyouts
• Healthcare
• Australasia
• buyout
• Crescent Capital Partners
• Australia
• healthcare
• TPG Capital
• The Carlyle Group