Luz Saúde could opt for direct sale
The CEO of Portuguese private health group Luz Saúde, Isabel Vaz says that the company is still interested in floating the company on the stock market after cancelling a floatation last year.
“Our interest in raising capital on the market remains but we are also looking at alternatives such as the direct sale of a share to investors”, she told the online news source ECO admitting that she liked “the pressure that you get by being in the market”.
“The IPO opened many doors, instigated a lot of conversation, much of it outside the box, that we’re exploring”, she said in a podcast ‘The Test of the Future’.
“We like pressure from investors and it is important from the point of view of raising capital in order to grow, to become larger and to be able to be integrated into larger ecosystems, at times from these same investors”, said Isabel Vaz who heads the group held by the insurer Fidelidade.
Isabel Vaz stresses that innovation cycles are increasingly speeding up which requires high levels of investment and that having scale facilitates acquiring this investment.
She also admitted that Luz Saúde could be part of a consolidation process with a large group in the sector if competition conditions can be assured.
“With the huge investment that we all have to make in technology, particularly in data and data treatment, we need to to be larger in order to invest”, she said.
The group plans to invest up to €300 million next year to be spent on opening new hospitals and acquisitions up and down the country.