Blue Owl Capital, the American alternative asset manager, and Moor Park Capital Partners have completed the acquisition of a portfolio of 12 acute-care hospitals operated by Spire Healthcare Group, the UK private hospital operator.
The price paid was not disclosed but is understood to be around £1.3 billion. It represents continued strong investor appetite for UK healthcare real estate, particularly from US private equity, with the transaction Blue Owl's debut in the UK healthcare sector.
Malaysia’s Employees Provident Fund appointed Knight Frank to sell the hospitals last year. EPF bought the portfolio from Spire in 2013 for £700 million.
The properties are managed by Moor Park Capital Partners which will be retained as asset manager.
The investment in the hospital portfolio is understood to have been made through Blue Owl’s European Net Lease Fund.
CoStar News revealed in 2013 that Standard Chartered had closed a five-year £400 million senior loan to EPF to finance the sale-and-leaseback of the portfolio which was the largest UK single-bank financing since the global financial crisis.
"The acquisition of the Spire portfolio represents a strategic investment in a portfolio of high-quality UK private hospitals with a market leading tenant, well-structured long-term leases and significantly accelerates the expansion of our European Net Lease strategy," said Marc Zahr, co-president and global head of real assets at Blue Owl in a statement. "This transaction builds on the firm's experience investing across the healthcare landscape and represents an opportunity to capitalise on the strong supply and demand fundamentals in the European healthcare real estate sector while delivering what we believe to be compelling value for investors and the communities these facilities serve."
Blue Owl said the Spire portfolio will benefit from its "institutional scale, investment expertise and long-standing relationships across the real estate market, creating a strong foundation for continued growth and long-term value creation".
Blue Owl and Moor Park jointly said they see "tremendous opportunity for further growth in the European healthcare sector and will continue to pursue opportunities in the space offering compelling risk-adjusted returns".
The acquisition was financed by a new secured term loan, with Standard Chartered Bank, Natixis and Crédit Agricole CIB acting as joint Mandated Lead Arrangers and lenders to the transaction.
Rothschild & Co was Blue Owl's exclusive financial advisor. Kirkland & Ellis and Hogan Lovells were Blue Owl's legal counsel. Deloitte was Blue Owl's tax and financial due diligence advisors.
The UK healthcare market saw around £12 billion of property transactions complete in 2025, according to Knight Frank figures, a record for annual investment into the sector and more than treble the long-term yearly average. The investment boom has been driven by a significant increase in appetite for exposure from cross-border family offices, insurance firms and REIT investors attracted by the sector’s countercyclical characteristics amid an increasingly uncertain market environment, Knight Frank reports.