TPG to take on Abraaj healthcare fund

The $1 billion healthcare fund that was at the centre of the collapse of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region’s biggest buyout firm has finally found a home after US private equity firm TPG agreed a deal to take over the management of Abraaj’s Growth Markets Health Fund.

The first step taken by TPG, which has $104 billion of assets under management, has been to rename it the Evercare Health Fund.

No financial details of the deal have been disclosed, but the appointment of TPG has been welcomed by the fund’s advisory committee, who stated that its new managers remain committed to the fund’s original mandate to invest in healthcare assets in emerging markets.

Over half of the fund has been invested in clinics and hospitals in south Asia and Africa and the fund had been managed in the interim by restructuring advisers, AlixPartners.

In mid-2018 Abraaj found itself at the centre of an investor dispute when several key investors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, queried the spending of the fund.

The dispute led to the unravelling of the Abraaj Group and the prosecution of its founder, Arif Naqvi, and leading executives over allegations of fraud.

Naqvi, who denies the charges, is currently under house arrest in the UK and is awaiting potential extradition to the US having failed to pay the $20 million bail bond, the largest of its kind ever ordered in the UK.

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