Basis for strategic partnership: Asklepios successfully acquires RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG

Asklepios Kliniken GmbH & Co. KGaA successfully concluded the voluntary public takeover offer to the shareholders of RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG as part of its objective of creating a strategic partnership. By the end of the additional acceptance period on 6 July 2020, altogether 28,464,866 shares were tendered to Asklepios at the offer price of EUR 18.00 in cash per RHÖN share. In total, this gives Asklepios a share in the voting rights of approximately 84.98%. As announced in February, Asklepios will contribute these shares to the new joint venture established together with RHÖN founder Eugen Münch. Münch himself contributed a further approximately 7.6% of RHÖN shares to the joint venture through HCM SE, which he controls. After the conclusion of the transaction, the joint venture holds 92.58% of voting rights. At the end of May the German Federal Cartel Office had already granted merger control clearance for Asklepios’ voluntary public takeover and plans to pool the shares, without any conditions. RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG will remain an independent company within the Asklepios group after the transaction has been concluded.

 “By successfully concluding the transaction, together we can now begin to make our vision of healthcare provision in Germany a reality. RHÖN and Asklepios will complement each other strategically, learn from each other and, in doing so, position themselves optimally for long-term, sustained success – for the benefit of patients and all employees,” said Kai Hankeln, CEO of the Asklepios Group. “Based on our strong, joint position, we will now break new ground for advanced medical care in Germany as partners. With the University Hospital of Giessen and Marburg lighting the way, RHÖN can play a key role in this.”

Hafid Rifi, Chief Financial Officer at Asklepios, commented: “United under one roof, we will take full advantage of the Group’s economies of scale for each individual hospital. Our first step now is to take stock of the situation and together examine whether and to what extent specific synergy potential can be harnessed. Savings from these economies of scale are to remain in the company so that they may be used to create new jobs and invest in modern patient care. In addition, we want to help RHÖN hire additional (intensive care) nursing staff, for example at the University Hospital of Giessen and Marburg, in order to further improve patient care and reduce employees’ workload. Of course, all current collective agreements at RHÖN will remain.”

Together with RHÖN, Asklepios wants to actively promote digitalisation at its hospitals and in the hospital sector as a whole, further consolidating its position as a pioneer of digital healthcare. Especially when it comes to issues such as electronic patient records, discharge management and expanding digital psychological therapy, a coordinated approach by the two hospital groups offers significant potential for optimisation. RHÖN is pursuing exciting initiatives in this area, including working on telemedicine with Medgate and AI-based revenue assurance with Tiplu, which we can strengthen together as a group.

New, digital approaches reinforce the expansion of outpatient treatment, allowing us to work across sectors in a way that benefits patients. Coming together as a group does not only further improve patient care – it also reduces employees’ workload. In addition, we are also committed to developing pioneering healthcare concepts such as capitation models, which increase planning reliability for hospitals, hospital staff and health insurance companies alike.