DALLAS: Financing constraints mean Bupa only has around 200-300 million dollars available for acquisitions in 2015, its chief executive said on Monday.
The unlisted company made profits of 638 million dollars last year and would come in at around 50-60th position in the FTSE-100, if it were a listed company. Bupa, set up in 1947, ploughs all of its profits back into the business.
It has no plans for a listing. But with two billion dollars in outstanding debt, it would not want to risk its single-A credit rating by issuing more debt to fund expansion.
“We have some headroom, and that headroom we are using, but it’s relatively small – we are talking about 200-300 million dollars for this year.”
Bupa has completed seven deals totalling 1.6 billion dollars in the past three years, including moving into new markets in Poland and Chile. Expansion in Peru was likely the next focus, Fletcher said…