Waha Capital looks to health care after a blistering 2013

Waha Capital says mandatory Dubai health insurance will give a shot in the arm to its medical business.

Salem Rashid Al Noaimi, the chief executive of Waha Capital, sees growth in health care in the next 12 or 24 months. Delores Johnson / The Nationa
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Salem Rashid Al Noaimi, the chief executive of Waha Capital, says Dubai’s move to make health insurance mandatory in 2014 will boost the Abu Dhabi investment firm’s nascent medical business as it seeks to position itself in industries that will benefit from a country on the cusp of an economic boom.

It is no coincidence that Dubai’s decision last November to make health insurance compulsory came months after Waha bought Anglo-Arabian Healthcare, a group that operates hospitals, pharmacies and clinics in the UAE.

For several years in the wake of the financial crisis, Waha's management had been plotting acquisitions in industries including health care and education that would flourish when the economy rebounded and offer protection from future downturns, Mr Al Noaimi said in an interview with The National last week.

“The healthcare platform is the core part of our future,” he said at his office on the 42nd floor of Etihad Towers, overlooking Emirates Palace. “We definitely see growth in health care. Mandatory health care kicked in Dubai in 2014 and we see it kicking in the Northern Emirates imminently. I think in the next 12 or 24 months it should happen. So that’s a big positive impact on the healthcare space.”

In the middle of last year, Waha acquired Anglo Arabian, which serves more than 400,000 people and employs 60 registered doctors. Waha, whose share price on the Abu Dhabi stock exchange quadrupled last year, is planning to make further investments through the healthcare group as well as acquire education assets with a total kitty of roughly Dh500 million.

Mr. Al Noiami said tapping more funds if it stumbles upon the right opportunity would not be a problem because of a mandatory convertible bond it can make use of, as well as the firm’s good standing with banks.

“The ability to raise money is not an issue,” he said. “The focus is on building a platform. The funding is there.”

Waha has been banking for the past several years on a return to form of the UAE’s economy and that finally came to fruition last year when GDP expanded more than 4 per cent as consumer confidence firmed and housing prices soared.

While question marks remains over much of the world’s economy, the Arabian Gulf has been well insulated because of its stores of oil revenue and the recent rout in emerging market assets is unlikely to cause a big dent in the region, said Mr Al Noaimi.

“We’ve always been more immune, more resilient because of natural resources in the area,” he said. “As a company, you build a platform that is resilient that is able to weather storms, that is able to do well in the downturn. We’ve proved that we can consistently make money but what we are gearing for now is the good times.”

And what a year 2013 was for Waha. Not only did it hit the big time when the New York-listed AerCap Holding, in which it has a 26.3 per cent, agreed in December to buy the insurer American International Group’s aircraft leasing business in a deal valued at more than US$5 billion, but the firm’s annual profit jumped 43 per cent with its net income rising to a record Dh306.4m.

mkassem@thenational.ae