Investcorp on Monday said it has invested in a Wuhan-based medical testing firm, serving patients across 600 Chinese cities. Courtesy Investcorp
Investcorp on Monday said it has invested in a Wuhan-based medical testing firm, serving patients across 600 Chinese cities. Courtesy Investcorp
Investcorp on Monday said it has invested in a Wuhan-based medical testing firm, serving patients across 600 Chinese cities. Courtesy Investcorp
Investcorp on Monday said it has invested in a Wuhan-based medical testing firm, serving patients across 600 Chinese cities. Courtesy Investcorp

Investcorp takes stake in Wuhan medical testing specialist Kindstar


Sarmad Khan
  • English
  • Arabic

Bahrain-listed alternative asset manager Investcorp is making a strategic investment in Chinese medical testing firm Kindstar Globalgene.

The deal with Wuhan-based Kindstar is part of the company’s plan to diversify its Asian portfolio and invest further in China, the world’s second-largest economy, Investcorp said in a statement on Monday. It did not give further details of the transaction.

Investcorp recently launched a platform focused on investing in high-quality Chinese healthcare companies that remained resilient throughout the pandemic and are expected to witness accelerated growth.

“Our focus on healthcare opportunities in China allowed us to identify Kindstar, which has built impressive capabilities for improving the quality of healthcare through severe diseases-related testing,” Hazem Ben-Gacem, co-chief executive of Investcorp, said.

“We believe that Kindstar has significant growth potential driven by accelerating demand for precision medicine, [an] underserved market and the company’s broadening advanced solutions to address an even wider range of specialty healthcare needs.”

In September, Investcorp acquired minority equity stakes in Lu Daopei Medical Group, a leading haematology hospitals group in China and WeDoctor, an online healthcare services company.

Kindstar offers patients and physicians broad access to advanced specialty testing services across haematology, gynaecology and paediatrics, infectious diseases, oncology and neurology. It currently serves more than 3,000 hospitals across 600 cities in China.

The company is among China’s leading medical testing firms with an international network and serves clients such as the Mayo Clinic, Illumina and Novartis.

Investcorp is a global investment manager, specialising in alternative investments across private equity, real estate, private credit and absolute return strategies.

The company plans to invest $4 billion on property acquisitions in the US and Europe over the next two years, Jon Dracos, head of real estate investment at Investcorp told The National earlier this month.

The company plans to fund its acquisitions through a mix of debt and equity, according to Mr Dracos.

With a presence in 12 countries across the US, Europe, the GCC and Asia, Investcorp Group has $32.2bn of assets under management.

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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