Press Release

Gulf Capital, one of the largest and most active alternative asset management firms in the Middle East, announced today that it has acquired a majority stake in ACCUMED Practice Management, the leading revenue cycle management (RCM) company in the GCC. The company post acquisition will continue to deliver its services under the current leadership and will be looking to expand its management team and add key executives to strengthen its operations.

ACCUMED leverages its proprietary technology and processes to help public and private healthcare providers in the UAE, KSA and Kuwait to improve medical documentation, enhance billing cycles, optimise revenues and accelerate collections. The firm is the first, and currently the largest, in the Middle East to offer RCM managed services, and has managed more than nine million medical claims worth over AED 4.1 Billion till date. The scope of ACCUMED’s services include comprehensive business process outsourcing, medical coding, technology solutions, consultancy services and staff augmentation, covering all medical insurance billing needs for hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres and other healthcare providers.

The company is benefiting from the general growth in the healthcare market in the Middle East, the growing penetration of health insurance, maturing regulation and the growing outsourcing trend in the industry. Today, many healthcare providers perform non-core activities such as medical coding and billing in-house. This is expected to change with increased penetration of outsourcing in non-core functions, allowing for higher efficiency and lower costs and enabling healthcare providers to focus on the delivery of high quality medical care.

Dr. Karim El Solh, Chief Executive Officer of Gulf Capital, said: “This strategic investment in ACCUMED is an exciting one for Gulf Capital, as it offers our investors exposure to the fast-growing healthcare industry in the GCC, but without the capital intensity or regulatory risks usually associated with investments in the industry. ACCUMED is the clear market leader in revenue cycle management in the GCC, and we look forward to funding and supporting the growth of the company, so it can continue to deliver enhanced operational and financial performance improvements to healthcare providers in the GCC.”

The RCM industry is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of over 20% in UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as hospitals shift increasingly toward outsourcing non-core activities and reimbursement standards are streamlined. Currently in the UAE and KSA, up to 95% of all insurance claims are processed in-house by healthcare providers in what can be a labour intensive and costly process. In more mature markets such as the US, up to 50% of all insurance claims are outsourced to specialised RCM companies that have the scale and resources to invest in proprietary technology and highly trained staff. The GCC healthcare industry is expected to see a big shift towards the outsourcing of non-core RCM activities in line with the US market trends.

Dr. Ayham Refaat, Founder and CEO of ACCUMED, said: “ACCUMED is thrilled to partner with Gulf Capital, whose support and growth capital will allow us to extend our market leadership position and to accelerate our growth in the UAE, KSA and other regional markets. In addition to aggressively growing our core outsourced RCM business, the partnership with Gulf Capital will also allow us to add new services and to invest in cutting-edge technology to streamline and automate workflows – something our hospital clients don’t have the scale or the appetite to do in-house. We are excited about this new chapter in ACCUMED’s growth story in partnership with Gulf Capital.

This latest acquisition represents Gulf Capital’s fourth investment in the technology sector. Gulf Capital has become one of the largest technology investors in the GCC, having injected to date over half a billion dirhams in regional technology, internet and e-commerce companies.

Ernst & Young acted as the financial and tax advisor, Alvarez and Marsal acted as the commercial advisor and Eversheds Sutherland acted as the legal advisor to Gulf Capital on this transaction. Guggenheim KBBO and Tribonian Law Advisors acted respectively as financial and legal advisors to the sellers.