NMC admin team lands in Abu Dhabi from UK

Dubai - Five-member team oversee operations of debt-ridden hospital operator

NMC Health has flown to Abu Dhabi a team of experts from London to oversee the operations of the debt-ridden hospital operator and extend support to various investigations underway.
The five-member team, delegated by NMC's UK court-appointed administrator Alvarez & Marsal, arrived in the UAE capital by a chartered flight on Saturday and is currently kept under regulatory quarantine, NMC sources revealed on condition of anonymity.
"In a significant development, the core team from Alvarez and Marsal has landed in Abu Dhabi. They are undertaking a 14-day mandatory quarantine and utilising this period to come to grips with the situation at hands," the source said.
A banking source, who is in the know of the developments, said NMC's business has a global presence with significant and sizeable businesses in the UAE and the Gulf. "The magnitude of the problems of this once-iconic healthcare enterprise would be multifold, and the efforts to restructure the company must start sooner than later and that too via operating at ground zero. Hence, A & M did well to fly down and start engaging hands on."
The scandal-tainted company, which has been caught in a whirlpool of debt totalling $6.6 billion as its founder BR Shetty and five other senior officials faced criminal charges of fraud and forgery, is also undergoing investigations on several fronts.
Britain's accounting regulator has already opened investigation into Ernst and Young's audit of NMC Health as the firm gets entangled in class-action lawsuits filed by several shareholder rights litigation firms in the US.
Subsequent to NMC's formal delisting from the London Stock Exchange, the hospital operator's newly-appointed CEO Michael Davis has now a free hand to "squarely look after the business while working with the administrators on ground, and the new board, on reconstructing the company," a source at a creditor bank of NMC said.
"The last two months had been eventful for Davis as the entire top tier at NMC had left leaving him alone to be working with staggering sets of business profiles, changing boards and close to half a dozen consultants," the source said.
NMC was placed under administration by the UK court following weeks of uncertainty relating to the firm's huge debt levels and undisclosed shareholder dealings.
The UAE's biggest private hospital group has seen its stock value plunge by more than 60 per cent since December after short-seller Muddy Waters questioned its financial statements.
- issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com