Rowsley to buy Thomson Medical businesses for $1.6 billion
Billionaire Peter Lim is injecting the privately held Thomson Medical Group and other healthcare assets into the Singapore-listed real estate firm Rowsley for $1.6 billion.
The deal is expected to be completed in the first quarter of next year. Rowsley will then be renamed Thomson Medical Group to reflect its change in focus to healthcare.
Rowsley will acquire Thomson Medical, the provider of healthcare services for women and children in Singapore which Mr Lim privatised for around $513 million in 2010.
It will acquire a 70.36 per cent stake in Malaysia-listed TMC Life Sciences (TMCLS), which has a market cap of RM1.47 billion (S$484.5 million).
TMCLS owns the 200-bed Tropicana Medical Centre in Klang Valley, Kuala Lumpur, and plans to add 400 more beds at the end of 2020.
TMCLS also plans to complete Thomson Iskandar Medical Hub in Rowsley's Vantage Bay Healthcare City in 2021.
After paying for the purchase by issuing 21.3 billion new stock to Mr Lim at 7.5 cents apiece, Rowsley's market cap would swell to $2.13 billion.
That would make Rowsley larger than rival Raffles Medical Group, which has a market cap of $1.93 billion, Rowsley told a briefing at the Goodwood Park Hotel yesterday.
Rowsley shares surged 2.5 cents or 22.52 per cent to 13.6 cents yesterday after the deal was announced, and was the top active counter with 305.8 million shares changing hands.
Rowsley announced plans in July to spend up to $1.9 billion to buy Mr Lim's healthcare assets and acquire one or more other medical practices. These other acquisitions did not pan out, it said yesterday.
After Mr Lim's asset injection, roughly two-thirds of Rowsley's revenue will come from healthcare, said Thomson Medical executive chairman Roy Quek.
Thomson Medical and Mr Lim's share of TMCLS raked in $199.4 million in revenue in the 12 months to Aug 31, up from $193.3 million in the same period a year earlier. These assets generated a net profit of $32.8 million, up from $26.7 million in the year before.
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