Ramsay Health Care sticks to core business as key priority

Ramsay Health Care is weighing a sale of its interests in Ramsay Sante hospital group in Europe. Picture: iStock

Ramsay Health Care boss Natalie Davis says leveraging existing assets remains a key priority and has played down its interest in pursuing mergers and acquisitions.

It comes as the country’s number two player, Healthscope, remains for sale.

Ms Davis said Ramsay was always looking at opportunities in the Australian market when assets came up, that were the right assets.

“But, we will be very sensible. That is all I can say,” she said.

Her comments came while presenting for the first time at the Macquarie Australia conference as the Ramsay chief executive.

It also comes amid speculation in the market Ramsay is not a buyer of the Healthscope business, but may take on select assets on its own terms, which may be that it gains a few key assets for a nominal sum.

Ms Davis said Ramsay was always trying to recruit doctors, but doctors were “sticky”.

“Despite what is playing out in the financial press, Healthscope is still operating and we are not seeing a wave of doctors moving away from Healthscope hospitals.”

Earlier in her presentation, she said leveraging existing assets was important.

She outlined how the company’s focus was on digitalisation of the Ramsay business to drive efficiencies and cost savings.

She said for the UK business she was not expecting fees to increase further this year.

Ramsay has hired investment bank Goldman Sachs to explore options for its European business Ramsay Sante.

Ramsay owns 52.8 per cent of the France-based Ramsay Sante hospital operator.

She outlined challenges with the operation, where the group receives 25 per cent to 30 per cent less in funding for the same work carried out in the government sector, which placed pressure on the business, as it was “not paid fairly for the work”.

The group was working on driving down costs, and she suggested one of the top three European hospital operators could be seen as a natural buyer.

“All we can say is that we have been working with Goldman Sachs at pace over the last few weeks trying to understand the level of interest.”

At the end of the presentation, Ms Davis would not comment on whether Ramsay would consider demerging the unit.