The joint venture will be seeded with 27 UK private hospitals (Image: Primary Health Properties)
Singapore’s GIC has agreed to invest in a joint venture with a London-listed healthcare landlord that will be seeded with 27 UK private hospitals worth about GBP 700 million ($933 million).
Primary Health Properties expects to receive about GBP 500 million from the joint venture deal, which it will use to pay down debt from its takeover of rival Assura last year, the company said in a London Stock Exchange filing on Monday. PHP will keep half of the 50:50 venture, and act as its property and asset manager. Completion is expected in November.
“In addition to generating proceeds to reduce our borrowings, the transaction enhances returns on invested equity for our shareholders and brings a highly aligned capital partner to support investment in essential UK hospital infrastructure,” said Mark Davies, chief executive of PHP.
The tie up echoes a 2018 partnership that GIC set up in Australia, where it joined with Toronto-listed NorthWest Healthcare Properties REIT to acquire and develop health facilities. The Singapore sovereign fund is also the primary institutional backer of the RAM Australia Healthcare Opportunity Fund, an A$1 billion platform set up in 2023 with Real Asset Management targeting investments in medical hubs and hospital developments.
A GIC spokesperson declined to comment on the UK venture.
Paying Off the Assura Bill
PHP is transferring the seed portfolio, which has a gross asset value of about GBP 700 million, at a five percent discount to its 31 December 2025 book value. That works out to roughly GBP 25.9 million per hospital in gross asset value, according to a Mingtiandi calculation.
GIC chief executive Lim Chow Kiat
The GBP 500 million proceeds is net of PHP’s retained 50 percent interest and of GBP 47.5 million in deferred consideration. PHP said it will use the cash to repay and cancel the rest of the bridging facility for the Assura acquisition, plus a GBP 266 million term loan.
On a pro forma basis, PHP said its net debt will fall to about GBP 2.9 billion at a weighted average interest rate of 3.6 percent. Its loan-to-value ratio will drop below 55 percent, and net debt will fall below 10 times EBITDA, the company said.
PHP will also earn a recurring management fee from the venture, with potential upside from a performance fee. Completion depends on finalising a new secured club debt facility for the venture. PHP said all key terms are agreed with lenders and that property and commercial due diligence is finished.
Rothschild & Co is sole financial adviser to PHP and debt adviser to the venture. The statement did not identify the hospitals in the seed portfolio or their operators, and GIC was not quoted in the announcement.
UK Investment Streak
GIC is investing in UK hospitals soon after the exit of another Asian institution, Malaysia’s Employees Provident Fund. In July, Blue Owl Capital paid about GBP 1.3 billion for 12 Spire hospitals that the Malaysian pension fund bought from Spire in 2013 for GBP 700 million.
The hospital venture is GIC’s latest bet in a UK market where it has invested across sectors for more than a decade.
GIC bought a half-stake in British Land’s Broadgate campus in the City of London from Blackstone in 2013 for GBP 1.7 billion. It later joined British Land in selling UBS’s 5 Broadgate headquarters to Victor Li’s CK Asset for GBP 1 billion in 2018. In April 2022, GIC paid GBP 694 million for a 75 percent stake in British Land’s Paddington Central assets at a 4.5 percent net initial yield.
The fund has also moved into alternative assets. In 2021 a GIC affiliate bought a 40 percent stake in Oxford Science Park. In 2022 GIC partnered with Greystar on the acquisition of student housing provider Student Roost, and in 2023 it joined with BlackRock and British Airways’ New Airways Pension Scheme to invest in the Tribeca King’s Cross life sciences complex.
Most recently, in August 2025, GIC and Chancerygate bought 17 multi-let industrial assets from Legal & General in a deal that local media valued at GBP 120 million.
