Spire Healthcare shares rocket after £1bn bid approach

Shares in Spire Healthcare shot to the top of the FTSE 250 on Wednesday, after the firm’s board signalled it would back a £1bn bid approach for the company from its second-biggest existing investor.

Private equity outfit Toscafund said it would offer 250p per share, a hefty 66 per cent premium from Wednesday’s closing price of 150.4p.

It was enough to secure approval from the board after previous offers fell short.

The stock rocketed toward the offer price, up 45 per cent to 218p. Spire said discussions were “currently at a relatively early stage”, but that its board “would be minded to recommend unanimously… the possible offer” to shareholders at the 250p price.

Spire runs 38 hospitals and over 60 clinics in England and Wales. It treated 1.4m people last year and is the leading private provider of knee and hip operations by volume. It runs workplace health services for 1,400 employers.

Demand for private healthcare has been rising in the UK as the National Health Service struggles to cut down long waiting lists.

Spire hails year of ‘transformation’

Spire also runs NHS partnerships, which generate a significant portion of its revenue. It said today in a separate trading update that NHS revenue was “as expected”, while “private patient revenue has continued to grow strongly, particularly self-pay.”

For 2025, Spire reported annual revenue of £1.6bn, up 4.5 per cent. Profit before tax was £18.6m, down by over 50 per cent. It called the year one of “transformation as we lowered our cost of delivery and centralised administration into our patient support centres”.

Toscafund is a London-based investment fund, best known for taking the TalkTalk telecoms firm private in late 2020 alongside Penta Capital.

Spire said in January this year that it was in talks with Bridgepoint and Triton, also private equity firms, though no deal was forthcoming.

Under City rules, Toscafund has until 5pm on 11 June to make a firm offer, or walk away for six months.

Spire has previously rejected a bid priced at 250p per share, made by Ramsay Healthcare of Australia in 2021.

City experts raised the prospect of higher bids this time around. 

Miles Dixon at Peel Hunt said: “We see value in excess of 250p at Spire – the UK landscape only moving in one direction for private care – and [it is] a business that is fundamentally improved from when we began coverage back in 2017.

 “However, we are mindful of the parties involved and of fatigue around offers… from the second-largest holder, we would not be surprised to see this deal go through.”