Vital Healthcare says shareholder's purchase of stake in Australian health trust not linked to rights offer

Vital Healthcare Property Trust [NZX: VHP] says its holding company's acquisition of 19.9 percent of an ASX-listed health trust is unrelated to its recent rights offer announcement, and the two trusts will be run independently.

NorthWest Healthcare Properties (NWH), a Canadian trust listed on the Toronto stock exchange, owns about 24.4 percent of Vital Healthcare Management, which manages the Vital trust.

NorthWest has today upped its stake in Generation Healthcare Trust (GHC), an ASX-listed trust with similar investment focus and real estate assets to Vital, the locally-listed company said in a statement. The Canadian trust bought 7.1 percent of GHC at the end of April, and has now bought a further 27.1 million shares, along with the entirety of GHC's management entity Generation Healthcare Management.

Vital Healthcare has been buying properties on both sides of the Tasman and expanding those facilities to latch on to ageing demographics in Australia and New Zealand. The property investor has A$87.6 million of development projects either underway or in the pipeline, and recent acquisitions add properties worth about A$64.1 million in Australia and NZ$31.7 million in New Zealand.

"Vital Healthcare Management advises that the transactions that are the subject of NWH's recent substantial security holder filings with the ASX are not in any way connected with Vital's rights offer," Vital's statement said. "There is no agreement, arrangement or understanding between Vital and NWH relating to GHC units or GHC."

Last Tuesday, Vital announced plans to raise $160 million through a two-for-nine renounceable rights offer to pay down debt, giving it headroom to pursue a pipeline of developments on both sides of the Tasman. Rights trading is expected to begin tomorrow.

In a shareholder presentation filed on the ASX, GHC said NorthWest intends to continue to manage and operate GHC and Vital as independent funds.

"NorthWest has committed to ensure existing governance arrangements including information barriers are maintained and implemented where appropriate to ensure GHC continues to be managed independently of its other healthcare real estate interests." it said.

(BusinessDesk)