Healius CEO Maxine Jaquet adds to executive team amid hostile takeover from ACL

Maxine Jaquet has refreshed her leadership team with a new pathology boss who more than doubled the size of South Africa’s AMPATH.

Maxine Jaquet, Healius chief executive, says the company’s new pathology boss Jan Van Rooyen brings a ‘a rare combination of clinical expertise in pathology and commercial leadership’.

Healius has appointed Jan Van Rooyen - former chief executive of South Africa’s AMPATH - as its new pathology boss amid an attempted hostile takeover from smaller rival Australian Clinical Labs.

Dr Van Rooyen will start at the company as its group executive, Healius Pathology on June 1, replacing John McKechnie as part of “refresh” of its executive leadership.

His appointment follows Healius’s board blasting ACL’s nil-premium offer as “plainly inadequate” and questioned the $95m in cost savings that ACL said it could deliver from a merged group.

ACL has proposed an all-scrip takeover, which involves offering 0.74 ACL shares for each Healius share. This would equate to Healius and ACL shareholders owning 68 and 32 per cent respectively of the new entity.

The bid comes as Healius’s earnings have fallen dramatically since the height of the pandemic, when pathology services were in strong demand, with taxpayer-funded Covid-19 tests evaporating.

Healius said in a statement to the ASX on Thursday that said Dr Van Rooyen’s appointment “continues to refresh and strengthen the Healius executive leadership team under managing director and chief executive officer Maxine Jaquet”

Dr Van Rooyen was chief executive of AMPATH, one of South Africa’s biggest pathology providers, for almost 20 years.

“Under Dr Van Rooyen’s leadership, AMPATH was transformed clinically and operationally from a collection of independent practices to a market-leading nationally consolidated business with a common support and IT infrastructure,” Healius said.

Ms Jaquet said Dr Van Rooyen more than doubled the size of the business with mid-teens annual earnings growth over his tenure. During this time at AMPATH its pathologist workforce grew from 70 to 160. By 2018 the company employed 4000 people over 900 collection facilities, performing about 24 million tests a year, with about a 40 per cent share of the South African market.

“After an extensive domestic and international search, I am delighted to appoint Jan to the role of Group Executive, Pathology. He brings a rare combination of clinical expertise in pathology and commercial leadership,” Ms Jaquet said.

Dr Van Rooyen said: “I am very pleased to be joining Healius and to lead its Pathology business at such an interesting time of rapid developments in diagnosis and in personalisation of medicine”.

“Pathology is a global industry and there are many parallels between the South African and Australian pathology markets. I look forward to working with Maxine and the Healius team and applying my knowledge to grow this business.”

ACL’s proposal has failed to win the support of Healius’s two biggest shareholders Perpetual Investment Management and Tanarra - which together own about 21 per cent of the company. The Medical Scientists Association of Victoria – a branch of the Health Services Union which represents pathology workers - has also criticised the bid.

Despite the lack of support, Healius remains subject to a raft of conditions it must adhere to during the six-month offer period.

Healius has not provided earnings guidance but said earlier this week that it expects a result in line with analysts consensus estimates. It also raised its gearing ratio under its debt covenant with its bankers from 3.5 to 4 times.

Last week Healius chair Jenny Macdonald branded ACL’s move as “opportunistic” and said if it were successful it would result in an “unfair transfer of value to ACL shareholders, including ACL’s largest shareholder, Crescent Capital Partners – an Australian private equity firm”.

“For clarity, your board is not opposed to engaging in discussions with ACL, or another party, in relation to a control transaction or merger proposal that is in the best interests of Healius shareholders,” Ms Macdonald said.

Healius shares closed flat at $3.05 on Thursday.