Brookfield’s comeuppance no cause for health policy complacency
The reality is that both taxpayers funding Medicare services and users of private healthcare will ultimately need to pay for the rising cost of the system.
The collapse of Healthscope into receivership is quite the embarrassing comeuppance for one of the masters of the global private equity universe. Events have proven there were two things wrong with Canadian investment giant Brookfield Asset Management’s $5.7 billion purchase of Australia’s second-largest private hospital group in 2019.
First, Brookfield has been caught out by taking on too much debt to buy Healthscope’s national network of 37 hospitals. Second, the strategy of selling and then re-leasing 22 facilities left Brookfield paying too much rent, as its business model was challenged by structural changes in the health sector.
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The Australian Financial Review’s succinct take on the principles at stake in major domestic and global stories – and what policy makers should do about them.
