The hospitals backing GHG healthcare’s Theatre (Hospitals) transaction, which was launched last month, should be pretty familiar to the ABS market by now; this is the third time they have been securitized. The first deal was subsequently refinanced (and then withdrawn) to be replaced by this latest structure, the product of South African healthcare group Netcare’s acquisition of GHG in April 2006 for £2.2 billion ($4.4 billion). As soon as the buyout became public, an opco/propco refinancing was on the cards – not least because the leverage in the GHG Finance deal was comparatively low and because London & Regional Properties was a member of the winning consortium (along with Apax Partners and Brockton Capital). The deal that has eventually emerged is indeed based on opco/propco principles, but has been a long time coming and involves a puzzlingly complex structure....
