NMC administrators say they’re near bottom of hidden debt pit

NMC Health’s administrators said that they’ve uncovered most of the hidden debt that caused the Middle East hospital operator to collapse.

The caretakers of the business are now looking into a range of options to recover some of those funds, Marija Simovic, managing director at Alvarez & Marsal, the restructuring specialist appointed as joint administrators in April, said in an interview on Wednesday.

“Do we believe a majority of it has been identified? Yes. Is it 100 per cent? No,” she said.

Investigations into the alleged fraud continue to reveal new information, which the administrators and their legal teams are exploring further.

Those probes come amid a turnaround that will see NMC focus on its operations in the United Arab Emirates and Oman while considering the sale of the non-core international subsidiaries, including its lucrative fertility business.

The unit is garnering strong global interest, with expressions of interest from more than 70 candidates, including the world’s biggest private-equity firms and a number of strategic buyers, Michael Davis, the acting CEO of NMC Health, said in the same interview.

“The message is still that this is not a fire sale, this is a global IVF platform, of which only a few exist in the world,” he said.

Founded by Indian entrepreneur Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty, NMC had a market value of $10bn at its peak on the London Stock Exchange before allegations of fraud pushed it into administration.

The firm has revealed more than $4bn of undisclosed borrowings, giving it a total debt of $6.6bn.

Shetty has said that he is the victim of a fraud that also resulted in the administration of NMC’s sister company, foreign-exchange operator Finablr.

Read more: Finablr Founder Shetty Resigns as Indian Court Closes Net on NMC