Following
reports last month that the Priory Group, a leading chain of rehabilitation centres and mental hospitals, could be put up for sale, its majority shareholders, Royal Bank of Scotland has finally appointed Rothschild to find a purchaser. RBS faces the prospect of refinancing several billion pounds of commercial property this year.
The Prioriy Group is best-known for its eponymous celebrity rehab clinic in Roehampton. However, its portfolio also includes more than fifty care homes, hospitals, and specialist schools around the country. The Priory hospital in Roehampton is the oldest independent psychiatric hospital in London, established back in 1872. The group has now diversified into specialist education, elderly care, secure mental health care and acute psychiatry services.
Estimates of the group’s value hover around the £1 billion mark, although there are understood to be very high borrowings dating back to the previous owner’s, ABN Amro, highly leveraged buyout from Doughty Hanson in 2005. RBS inherited the Priory Group through its disastrous takeover of ABN Amro two years later. A flotation was mooted at the end of last year but shelved on account of the downturn in the stockmarket. At the time it waas hoped the Priory Group would raise as much as £1.3 billion.
It is believed that several private equity firms, including Blackstone, TPG and Apax, have already expressed an interest in buying the group.
