SYDNEY--Ramsay Health Care Ltd. (RHC.AU) will almost certainly
participate in further industry consolidation in France and has the
financial firepower to do major deals, Australia's biggest private
hospital company said Wednesday.
The French economy is likely to struggle for the next 12-to-18
months, creating opportunities to snap up assets from distressed
owners, Christopher Rex, Ramsay's chief executive, told a
conference Wednesday. "And you will almost certainly see us take
advantage of that as they arise," Mr. Rex said.
With a net debt-to-operating earnings ratio of around 2.6 times,
Ramsay could comfortably afford a deal, Mr. Rex said.
He later told journalists that the company could afford a
company-transforming acquisition, but would likely need to tap the
market for more funding if it ever pursued such a large deal.
"We do have a significant amount of headroom and obviously
against the earnings of any capital that we acquire we can borrow
further," he said. "But we're probably at a point where we would
need to consider how we would fund beyond that point."
-Write to Ross Kelly at ross.kelly@wsj.com
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