Dubai-based investor TVM Capital Healthcare Partners expects to enter South East Asia and Saudi Arabia as it seeks its third round of fundraising this year to finance its expansion.
The private equity firm’s healthcare division, which has invested in home care, long-term rehab, IVF centres and medical devices, wants to raise about US$250 million for investments in Middle East and North Africa, Turkey, South East Asia and India. It raised $50m in the first round in 2010 and more than $22m in the second fund in 2014.
In South East Asia, TVM is looking to enter IVF treatment, medical devices and home-care segments, the areas in which it already has operational experience, as well as new segments such as cancer care, dentistry and ophthalmology. TVM Capital expects to offer services in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
“These markets are growing and the population is requesting quality medical care,” said Hoda Abou-Jamra, the founding partner of TVM Capital Healthcare Partners.
TVM Capital’s healthcare portfolio includes the medical device manufacturer Ameco Medical Industries, based in Egypt, fertility centres under Bourn Hall International in Dubai and India, Cambridge Medical and Rehabilitation Centre in Abu Dhabi and Manzil Health Care Services, which specialises in home care, in Abu Dhabi, Egypt and Qatar.
TVM Capital secured a licence last year to operate its Cambridge Medical and Rehabilitation Centre in Saudi Arabia, after the country opened up its healthcare sector to private investment. It expects its first Cambridge centre to open in Dammam in a year followed by another in Riyadh. It is also looking to bring Manzil Health Care Services to Saudi Arabia.
“We are looking at partnering with hospitals there to bring Manzil,” Ms Abou-Jamra said.
Turkey and Egypt are the other markets it is looking to enter, despite the political and economic problems they are facing.
“Regardless of the situation, the need is there and it is when others are shying away that there are investment opportunities,” she said.
Rating agency Fitch said earlier this month that it expects Turkey’s economic growth to average 2.6 per cent this year and next. Turkey grew at an average of 7.1 per cent in the five years to the end of 2015. Turkey and Egypt are expected to experience high inflation this year.
The Egyptian prime minister said this week that the government will spend 8 per cent of total state expenditures on health and education in the financial year 2017-18.
In the UAE, TVM Capital expects to tackle regulatory changes. In January, the health insurer Daman rolled back the 20 per cent co-payment requirement for long-term and home-care treatment for Emiratis. “The regulations [introduced by Health Authority – Abu Dhabi last year] worried us but the regulators won’t do anything that hurts the sector,” Ms Abou-Jamra said. “Any [developing] market like ours needs these regulations.”
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