One of Britain’s biggest private healthcare companies is set to be acquired by a Middle Eastern provider in the latest example of consolidation within the industry.
The $1.2 billion takeover of Circle Health by PureHealth will mark the Abu Dhabi-based group’s entrance into the UK healthcare sector.
In 2012 Circle Health became the first private company to run an NHS hospital, when it took over Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire. The hospital was handed back to the NHS later after the health regulator rated the trust “inadequate”. The company runs 54 hospitals in Britain and specialises in areas including orthopaedics, neurosurgery and oncology. It employs more than 8,200 people.
Its expansion was accelerated through the acquisition in 2020 of BMI Healthcare, at that time Britain’s