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CONTRACT book up 63% to Euros 1.15bn at Ambea
publication date: Apr 23, 2009
Ambea, the Pan-Nordic care and hospital group, had a strong 2008 with its contract portfolio up 63% at SEK12.4bn (€1.14bn) and operating profit ahead 35.6% at SEK 471.8m (€43.4m). Its lavish, 64 page, annual report is well worth a careful read, as it gives market size and growth figures, as well as naming competitors.
Majority owned by 3i, the group was nearly sold in 2008 and the lavish detail in annual report for 2009 suggests that 3i will eventually put the business back in the shop window. The results are certainly impressive. (Click here to see pdf). Ambea's contract success reflects the outsourcing revolution which is taking place in Sweden in domiciliary, primary and psychiatric care, but its Finnish hospital group, Mehiläinen, also did well. Anyone who is interested in the Nordic region should spend an hour reading the report carefully. Here are our edited highlights: Norway remains a niche market. Ambea sees little evidence that the country, which spends the most on public healthcare per capita of any European country (39,400 SEK), will open up anytime soon, although it does pin hopes on this autumn’s elections. Other sources say the right-wing opposition is likely to win. However, even in Norway, Ambea managed to grow sales 32% to 221.8m SEK. Ambea sees niche opportunities here. For example, its Friskvernklinikken clinic in Asker, outside Oslo, which uses a multidisciplinary approach to tackle obesity, depression and muscle and skeletal injuries. It is allowed to work both on public sector contracts and with private patients and now has 50 staff. Ambea is also looking keenly at Denmark, where it is not yet present. As previous Healthcare Europa stories have pointed out, Danes can now go private if waiting lists are longer than a month. Ambea says this is leading to high growth in specialist services and says private healthcare insurance is growing fast. Finland offers huge opportunities as municipalities outsource care of the elderly. Ambea expects the cost to municipalities of care of the elderly to exceed SEK 90bn (€8.3bn), and expects the available volume for private players to grow by over 20%. Patient choice of primary care comes into force on January 1, 2010, opening a 30bn SEK market to the private sector. Meanwhile, Ambea’s Finnish arm, Mehiläinen, has picked up an occupational care contract for Nokia’s 23,000 employees. Mehiläinen has done well out of the weakness of main rival Terveystalo (finally sold to Bridgepoint at the state of 2009). In Sweden,the value of all tenders in the segments in which Ambea is active doubled from SEK 2.5 billion (€258m) in 2007 to SEK 5.6 billion (€516m) in 2008, of which Ambea won nearly half. The company expects that to continue as the new Freedom of Choice in Healthcare Act will probably mean that a large number of municipalities will introduce customer-choice solutions, primarily for the home-help service. The municipalities’ procurement of contracts in elderly care amounted to SEK 2.8bn in 2008, up SEK 900 million. During 2009, that should rise to SEK 3.5bn. In February 2009, the Swedish Riksdag adopted the government bill Choice of Primary Care. Stockholm, Halland and Västmanland have already introduced choice in primary care and, in Stockholm, it also covers some elective specialist care, such as orthopaedic hip and knee arthroplasties. In 2009, other county councils will follow suit and on 1 January 2010, care choice will be introduced nationally for all primary care. |
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