The UK’s biggest private hospital provider, Spire Healthcare, is in talks about a sale to private equity that could lead to it being delisted from the London Stock Exchange.
The company, which owns the Claremont hospital in Sheffield and St Anthony’s hospital in south London, said on Monday that Bridgepoint Advisers and Triton Investments Advisers were “amongst the parties” with which it was in talks.
Its shares jumped 18%, making Spire the top riser on the FTSE 250 on Monday. Spire said talks were at an early stage, adding: “There can be no certainty that any offer will be made.”
It first announced a strategic review of its operations in September, saying it was in discussions with several parties to explore options including a potential sale of the business.
The private healthcare provider runs 38 hospitals and more than 50 clinics, medical centres and consulting rooms across England, Wales and Scotland. It was founded in 2007 with the acquisition and rebranding of 25 Bupa hospitals, and floated on the stock market in 2014. Spire acquired a string of other sites, and also built two new hospitals, in Manchester and Nottingham.
It has come under pressure from investors, led by Harwood Capital Management, which told the Times last September that it felt Spire’s share price failed “to reflect the company’s value, most notably its unencumbered hospital portfolio worth in excess of £1.4bn, and its occupational health business”. The board, which is chaired by the former Kingfisher boss Sir Ian Cheshire, responded by launching the review of the business.
The company said in December that annual adjusted core profit would be at the bottom end of its guidance range of £270m to £285m. While more people have been paying for private treatments out of their own pockets, and there has been an increase in patients with health insurance, work it carries out on behalf of the NHS has slowed.
Shire blamed budgetary restrictions at integrated care boards, which are responsible for planning, funding, and overseeing NHS services in a local area, and replaced clinical commissioning groups in England in 2022. The company said NHS volumes were a “material uncertainty” across the sector, and that the health service’s proposed annual tariff uplift for 2026-27 fell “significantly short” of the rate of inflation.
NHS work makes up about 30% of Spire’s revenue and has provided a steady income stream. The company’s chief executive, Justin Ash, has talked of an “integrated system” in which Spire and other private healthcare chains help reduce NHS waiting lists and “unlock growth” by helping return the long-term sick to work.
There are growing concerns among the public and NHS staff about creeping privatisation of the health service, leading to a two-tiered system in which access to treatment is dependent on wealth. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has defended the growing use of the private sector, while saying providers must “pull their weight” and not take resources away from the NHS.
