Blue Owl Capital acquires portfolio of 12 UK private hospitals from Malaysia's EPF in £1.3bn deal
Blue Owl Capital has acquired a portfolio of 12 UK private hospitals from Malaysia's Employees Provident Fund (EPF), in a transaction valued at approximately £1.3bn. The assets comprise a portfolio of Spire hospitals and will continue to be managed by Moor Park Capital Partners, which retains its role as asset manager following completion. Blue Owl and Moor Park Capital declined to comment, while EPF had not responded to requests for comment at publication. Separately, and unrelated to this transaction, UK-listed healthcare landlord Primary Health Properties is reported to be exploring a stake sale in a £700m private hospital portfolio to Singapore's GIC as it works to reduce leverage following its own acquisition of Assura. The deal reflects sustained investor appetite for UK private healthcare infrastructure, driven by rising demand for private healthcare services as the National Health Service works through treatment backlogs that expanded during the Covid-19 pandemic. The transaction is a cross-border real asset acquisition by a US-based alternative asset manager buying from a sovereign wealth fund, bringing a major slice of UK private hospital capacity under new ownership while preserving existing operational management.
Why this matters
A £1.3bn real-asset acquisition of UK private hospital infrastructure activates a broad range of practice areas: real estate, corporate M&A, regulatory (given NHS adjacency and potential competition considerations), and banking and finance for any acquisition financing or leverage management. A separate, unrelated report that Primary Health Properties is exploring a £700m portfolio stake sale to GIC should not be read as part of this transaction, though it reflects the same broad investor appetite for UK private healthcare real estate. The NHS backlog narrative is the structural 'why now': private hospital capacity has become a genuinely scarce asset class as demand outstrips NHS supply, making trophy portfolios attractive to long-duration capital such as sovereign wealth funds and alternative asset managers. No advisers are named in the sources, so the advisory landscape cannot be confirmed.
On the Ground
A trainee on this matter would manage the completion bible for the main acquisition, coordinating Companies House filings for any UK entity restructuring and reviewing SPA schedules covering each of the 12 hospital assets.
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“What competition law considerations might arise from a single buyer acquiring a portfolio of 12 private hospitals in the UK, and how would you advise a client on managing that risk?”
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