DGAP-News

Asklepios Kliniken: Consolidated net operating income impacted by continuing coronavirus pandemic - Seite 2

In the period from January to September 2020, the healthcare facilities of the Asklepios Group, not including the RHÖN hospitals, treated a total of 1.25 million patients - representing a year-on-year decrease of more than 30% due to the pandemic (9M 2019: 1.86 million). The RHÖN hospitals treated around 607,000 patients in the same period. With 36,611 full-time equivalents on average, Asklepios had more employees than in the same period of the previous year (9M 2019: 36,098), while RHÖN also significantly increased its number of employees year-on-year to 18,242 (9M 2019 RHÖN: 17,899). Together with RHÖN, the Asklepios Group currently has around 32,508 beds.

On 28 October 2020, Asklepios took advantage of the good environment for transactions on the non-cyclical healthcare market and placed a schuldschein loan agreement of over EUR 730 million. The funds generated in this way were used entirely for refinancing, particularly for the early repayment of the acquisition financing that Asklepios borrowed in connection with the RHÖN transaction.

"The hospital market is very challenging at present. Financing security and a balanced maturity profile with financial flexibility are therefore extremely important to us, as well as optimisation of our capital costs," says Hafid Rifi, CFO of Asklepios. "Our focus now is on continuing the integration of RHÖN and dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. This means that we need to take advantage of the strong structures and synergies for our healthcare facilities so that we can fulfil our healthcare mandate together -particularly in the context of the continuing coronavirus pandemic and the effects on our economic development."

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will remain the defining issue for the healthcare sector for the rest of this financial year and beyond. The financial implications are still impossible to gauge in any detail. The respective German states' payments for hospital operators has not yet been finalised. Potential regulatory restrictions and their influence on the remuneration structure will also make an impact. Regardless of this, Asklepios will proceed with RHÖN's integration, further expand the strategic partnership and thus continue on its growth trajectory.