The public hospital concessionaire of Madrid and the Valencian Communitythe company Health Firstbilled 659.7 million euros in 2021, which means 30% more in the last year, according to the latest accounts recently filed with the Mercantile Registry. This company is the owner of Ribera Salud and the concession of the Torrejón de Ardoz hospital in Madrid, a business that its previous shareholder –US insurance group Centene– just vend of november to the French group Vivalto Health.
This higher billing had a direct impact on the result. In this way, First Health got out of lossessince compared to the red numbers of 3.7 million in 2020, it earned 34.7 million in the past year.
The germ of this company was born in 1999 in the Valencian Community when the Generalitat, then chaired by Eduardo Zaplana (PP) became the ideologue of the creation of Ribera Salud, through the Valencian savings banks (now defunct) to manage new hospitals. This is what was called the Alzira model, after the name of the Valencian town where the company managed the first center. A model that also moved to Madrid at the time of Hope Aguirre (PP) as chairperson.
The company, however, has seen how the botanic pact (PSOE, Compromís y Podemos) has reversed management to the public of two of those hospitals, the one in Alzira and the one in Torrevieja (in the latter case in October 2021) when the concession expired.
In the Primero Salud accounts, it is recognized that in 2020 and 2021, the company has requested late payments from the Health Departments for the management of public centers: “Part of the aforementioned claims have been accepted and collected during the year and another part is currently in litigation with the Administration.” The auditor of the accounts, KPMGalso warns that there is settlements for the years 2010 to 2021 without settlement“there are certain concepts and amounts on which a final agreement has not been reached.”
Of the set of income of Primero Salud, 559.8 million come from hospital and primary health care; 17.8 million diagnostic imaging; 27.7 million from the clinical laboratory; 43.6 million other services; and 10.8 million of an unspecified financial income from concession.
This company manages the public hospitals of Elche, Denia and Torrevieja (Alicante) and Torrejón in Madrid, as well as participating in the central clinical laboratory of Madrid, which provides services to five public hospitals in the region. Likewise, it has expanded into private healthcare, acquiring centers in Galicia, where it has four clinics (for example, the Povisa Hospital in Vigo); in Extremadura (Almendralejo and Villanueva de la Serena) and Murcia (Cartagena and Molina de Segura). Last year, the American Centene controlled 25 subsidiaries through Primero Salud (also in health technology and in the Czech Republic and Slovakia).
At the end of November, Centene divested itself of the bulk of this business, transferring the activity in Spain, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to Vivalto Santé, the third largest French hospital group, for an undisclosed amount.
who is the new owner
The Spanish hospital business of Primero Salud (which groups Ribera Salud and Torrejón Salud) has passed to Vivalto Santé. This company is 35% controlled by employees (mostly doctors) and the rest by a group of investors grouped in Vivalto Partners, a firm chaired by Daniel Caille, founder of the French healthcare group. Among these latter shareholders are funds and financial groups such as Arkéa Capital, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Mubadala (Abu Dhabi’s state holding), the public bank Bpifrance, IK Partners and Hayfin.