We have maintained momentum in the past financial year by creating value from our assets under management. RH Bophelo recorded a 31% increase in the valuation of its investments and the value of its portfolio has grown by 10% since inception. We have added three more hospitals to our portfolio: (i) Fauchard Day Clinic; (ii) Bell Hospital; and (iii) Medicare Hospital Rustenburg, with a total of 208 beds. These acquisitions were made in line with our mandate and our stated goals as per our investment strategy. These investments were additionally punctuated by our purchase of a sixty (60%) per cent shareholding in Wesmart Financial Services Proprietary Limited (Wesmart). The acquisition of Wesmart, a health insurance underwriting agency, will allow us to offer affordable healthcare insurance products to the people of South Africa and, in so doing, deliver a viable means of access to RH Bophelo’s growing portfolio of hospital infrastructure.
RH Bophelo has not only grown in terms of its portfolio acquisitions, now at four wholly-owned (Medicare Private Hospital, RH Bell Hospital, RH Fauchard Hospital and Vryburg Private Hospital), three majority-owned (St. Helena Private Hospital, Fountain Private Hospital, and Fochville Private Hospital) through our holding in AHC and one minority-owned (Rondebosch Medical Centre), but has also seen its hospital management capabilities progress from strength to strength with the integration of its internal and external hospital management teams.
We have established partnerships that are designed to enhance both our operations and cement us as the go-to entity with respect to the building of partnerships intended to support emerging hospital groups and managers, as well as assisting in the transformation of the South African healthcare landscape.
The synergies that we see going forward are to be found with respect to the execution of our mandate and as set out in the investment statements, which are to be found in extracting operational efficiencies from our portfolio of assets, while increasing traffic to our infrastructure through the creation of health insurance products at price points meant to spread the healthcare franchise to both those looking for value for money as well as those who are first time entrants into the health insurance market.
The strategy for RH Bophelo is established through a process that includes consultation between the transactors, external discussions with healthcare experts, as well as the investment committee and board interactions. Formally, once a year, we convene a strategy session to ascertain those elements of our business plan that have yielded results and those that require tweaking. The execution of strategy is left to the fund management team guided by the “C” level executives who are mandated to seek out, execute and drive earnings from investments.
In the next financial year, we will continue to grow through our innovative products that will enhance our healthcare business offering. By combining intensified capacity expansion with accelerated operational efforts and continuous efficiency improvements in our hospitals, we will strengthen our pursuit of becoming the leading provider of affordable and quality healthcare to all.
