Healthscope In Excellent Health
The Age
Saturday October 18, 2008
HEALTHSCOPE will remain insulated from the global financial meltdown and could even experience growing demand for its health-care services, the company's chief executive says.
Bruce Dixon said he also expected margins at Healthscope's hospitals to increase throughout 2008-09 and eventually sit just under 20% from about 15.9% now.Speaking after the annual meeting in Melbourne yesterday, Mr Dixon said Healthscope had locked away its debt for three years in June and had completed a three-year debt facility for $850 million on good terms.He said Healthscope was "totally insulated" from the global financial markets."And normally in tougher times actually the demand for health care goes up, just as more people feel the pressure and the stress ... and at the end of the day demand increases for health care."Healthscope is one of the country's biggest providers of private health care, including 45 private hospitals, 63 pathology laboratories across Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia, and 54 medical centres nationwide.At the annual meeting, outgoing chairman and director Kevin McCann said financial results for the first quarter were in line with expectations and that the company had maintained the strong growth experienced in the second half of 2007-08 for hospitals and pathology.Mr Dixon said he expected margins at its hospitals for the next few years to grow at about 50 basis points a year. Margins should increase to about 19% eventually.Mr McCann said: "The long-term demographic trends of an ageing Australian population and a high participation rate in private health insurance will continue to underpin the future growth in demand for our integrated health-care services."
© 2008 The Age
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