Business

VPS Healthcare to build cancer hospital in Abu Dhabi

The cancer hospital is part of a new medical city planned for Mohammed Bin Zayed City in Abu Dhabi.

Michael Fahy
Michael Fahy

November 02, 2015

VPS Healthcare is planning to build a cancer hospital in the capital using the latest proton beam therapy.

It is part of a new medical city planned for Mohammed Bin Zayed City in Abu Dhabi.

The Abu Dhabi-based company’s founder and managing director, Dr Shamsheer Vayalil, revealed the plans following the signing of a with US-based health care provider Penn Medicine.

Under the deal, Penn Medicine will provide expertise for creating new systems, provide physicians and nursing staff and offer comprehensive training and development for VPS Healthcare’s staff. The deal will also help VPS Healthcare to develop its own oncology offer, as well as improve its treatment of diabetes and other chronic, lifestyle-related diseases and create a structure for VPS Healthcare’s nursing staff to gain accreditation under the American Nurses Credentialising Center’s Magnet programme.

“Oncology is one space where we were very interested to collaborate,” said Dr Vayalil. “They have already started looking at our systems and trying to make sure that we provide the entire service spectrum in our new project in Mohammed Bin Zayed City. That’s going to be a flagship hospital and we expect to have all of the latest technology in cancer, including a proton beam, which is only available in a few centres around the world,” he added.

Dr Vayalil said that VPS Healthcare has already begun to seek approval from Abu Dhabi Health Authority for using the treatment, and that he anticipates that that the hospital will open at the same time as the rest of its 1 million sq ft, 300-bed medical city planned for Mohammed Bin Zayed City, for which it gained planning approval from the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council earlier this year.

Mr Vayalil said this would be the first proton therapy centre in the Middle East, and would make its new hospital “a complete cancer care destination”.

“We feel that that’s where we need to add value for local patients, because it’s very difficult to travel when you are affected by these diseases.”

Meanwhile, Penn Healthcare’s CEO Ralph Muller said the VPS Healthcare treatment centre in the UAE would provide “a real opportunity” to provide additional research and insight for its own cancer programme.

mfahy@thenational.ae

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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