Evercare Health Fund, a U.S.-based private equity fund backed by The Gates Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by Bill Gates and his ex-wife Melinda French Gates, has sold its stake in Nairobi’s Metropolitan and Ladnan hospitals for Ksh1.02 billion ($8.2 million).
Its decision to sell the 54.9-percent stake in Metropolitan Group Holdings — the holding that owns the two hospitals — comes after a definitive agreement was reached with minority co-owner Metro Group Plc, which presently holds a 41.8-percent stake in the company.
The Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) stated that the transaction is not expected to “raise any public interest concerns because the acquirer is simply increasing its shareholding in the target, and based on this, the Authority has approved Metro Group Plc’s proposed acquisition of control of Metropolitan Group Holdings.”
Evercare acquired stakes in the two hospitals in 2019 from the troubled Dubai-based Abraaj Holdings as part of a deal in which the U.S. fund also acquired shares in Nairobi Women’s Hospital and The Avenue Group of Hospitals.
With the approval from CAK, Metro Group, a company founded by healthcare professionals in the 1990s, is now the operator of Metropolitan Hospital, which has 134 beds, and Ladnan, which has 42 beds, accounting for 5.8 percent of the 3,000 private hospital beds in Nairobi.
The recent deal comes nearly a week after Bill Gates announced plans to spend $7 billion over the next four years to fight hunger, disease, gender inequality, and poverty in Africa through The Gates Foundation.
The $7-billion commitment comes at a time when the world is grappling with overlapping global crises that are worsening hunger, malnutrition, and poverty for millions.
The donation is in addition to the foundation’s existing funding for multilateral organizations such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.
