Global Health Partner acquires OPA

Global Health Partner (STO:GHP) has acquired OPA, Ortopædisk Privathospital Aarhus A/S in Århus, Denmark, a specialist clinic operating in the fields of orthopaedics and spine surgery. "OPA complements our current clinics within these areas very well. The clinic has some of Denmark's leading specialists and with its competent personnel runs a very fine business in modern premises in the congress centre in Århus. The clinic is, amongst other things, one of the few private health providers in Denmark to have obtained approval to perform highly specialized procedures in the cervical spine," says Per Båtelson, Global Health Partner's CEO.

OPA was formed in 2005 by eight doctors, six specialists within orthopaedics and spine surgery and two anaesthesiologists, and today it performs a broad spectrum of operations within these areas. In the autumn of 2010 OPA became the first hospital in the Mittjylland Region in Denmark to be accredited under the Danish Healthcare Quality Programme.

Six of the company's former eight owners remain as partners after the acquisition. Global Health Partner's acquired interest is 70%. All the previous owners will continue to work at the clinic.

"Global Health Partner's and OPA's vision for the business are very much in agreement, and we look forward to continuing to work together for OPA's development. Being part of a network of clinics with the same high objectives and quality focus feels stimulating," says Alice Jensen, OPA's CEO.

OPA has approximately 30 employees and has a turnover of just under SEK 60 million. Profitability has been affected by the downturn in the Danish market, but the clinic, with its very good capacity and high quality, is well equipped to continue to be an important centre in Jylland and to also further strengthen its position in the time ahead. In addition to publicly funded patients, who come via Det utvidgede frie sygehusvalg (comparable to the health care guarantee, Vårdgarantin, in Sweden) and who constitute the majority of the revenues, the company also has contracts with most insurance companies. OPA today has a net debt of approximately SEK 25 million and will be consolidated in Global Health Partner as from 1 July 2011. It is estimated that the effect on the Group's results will be marginal for 2011.

Global Health Partner runs specialist clinics in the following selected areas of treatment: spine surgery/spine care, specialist dentistry, obesity surgery and metabolic diseases, orthopaedics and arrhythmia. In addition to OPA, there are today six clinics within spine surgery and orthopaedics, in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Lund in Sweden and in Bergen in Norway.