Bahrain-based Arcapita and the country’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat have acquired a 90 percent stake in health insurance processing firm NAS United Healthcare Services.
The investment firm and Bahrain’s Mumtalakat Holding Co said in a joint statement they had together acquired an “approximately 90 percent stake” in the company.
NAS United Healthcare Services is a GCC-based outsourced health insurance processing services company. It claims to provide third party administrator services to more than 40 health insurance and takaful companies in the region, and to more than 7,200 healthcare providers across all of the GCC, Middle East and India.
It also claims to service a pool of more than 500,000 insured members and processes in excess of 3 million medical claims per year.
The market for outsourced medical claims management in the GCC is expected to grow significantly as more countries introduce compulsory health insurance, and as the overall quality of healthcare treatment in the region improves.
Mumtalakat’s CEO Mahmood Hashem Alkooheji told Arabian Business earlier this year that the fund was targeting a more active healthcare investment strategy.
He said in the statement this week: “Global population trends indicate the importance of increased healthcare solutions and by extension, health insurance services.
“In fact, between 2015 and 2050, the proportion of the world’s population aged over 60 years will nearly double from 12 percent to 22 percent and global annual healthcare spending is projected to rise at a rate of 6 percent per year, reaching $10 trillion by 2020.
“As a result, the majority of GCC governments have either implemented mandatory healthcare insurance coverage or plan to launch initiatives in the coming two to three years. The Government of Bahrain is working on rolling-out a new mandatory health insurance law for Bahrainis and expatriates in the next one to two years.
“We believe NAS has significant potential to expand into regional countries and secure large contracts and we are delighted to partner with Arcapita to invest in NAS.”
Atif Abdulmalik, Arcapita’s CEO, added: “The global wellness and healthcare sectors are core focus areas for us; Arcapita’s management has made a number of successful investments in these sectors in the past.
“NAS is a regional market leader with a strong technology backbone and highly scalable business model.”
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