EBRD, Renaissance Holding ink Elazig health campus deal

ANKARA (AA) – The final deal for funding the Elazig Integrated Health Campus Project, to be built by Renaissance Healthcare Investment in partnership with the Meridiam Group, was signed Tuesday in a ceremony attended by company officials, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and other parties.

The project, in the eastern Anatolian city of Elazig, includes an integrated health campus with a total capacity of 1,038 beds from two hospitals and one clinic, according to the project website.

Renaissance Healthcare Investment, a major player in the Turkish healthcare market, recently issued Turkey’s first-ever project bond, rated Baa2 by Moody’s investor service, to obtain €288 million finance for building the health campus.

The project is supported with a new scheme by the European bank with an interim liquidity loan worth €89 million to reduce construction and operation risks and an insurance scheme by the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) for political risks.

Bonds were sold to prominent global investors including the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Intesa Sanpaolo, Siemens Financial Services, Proparco, Dutch Development Bank (FMO), and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

The bond also has the distinction of being Turkey’s first-ever “Green and Social Bond” approved by Vigeo EIRIS, a global organization promoting investments in which the environment and social development are as important as profitability.

- Commitment to Turkey

Speaking at the signing event, Merdam COO Gordon Bajnaj expressed solidarity with Turkey in the wake of a number of recent terrorist attacks.

Barnaj said that with five Turkish hospital projects Meridian has taken part in so far, including the Elazig campus, they have contributed €2 billion to the Turkish economy and will generate 42,000 jobs.

Like the government, Meridian would like to make Turkey a leading country in health care and offer a better life to its citizens, Barnaj said.

For his part, Jean-Patrick Marquet, the ERBD’s Turkey director, said that the signing offered good news amid difficult times.

Marquet said the EBRD is very happy to support Turkey’s hospital program, with Elazig the sixth hospital they have financed, adding that to date the bank has invested half a billion in euro bonds for the projects and more is yet to come.

Saying that they believe in Turkey, Marquet said, “Our investment in Turkey is around $2 billion. This is a very important indication of our commitment to Turkey, and it will continue. We will maintain our high level of investments next year. There is a great investment story in Turkey.”

Renaissance Holding head Erman Ilicak said that they are proud to be a key contributor to Turkey’s health sector transformation under a Private-Public-Partnership (PPP) business model, in which public-private partnership between a government agency and private-sector companies can be used to finance, build, and operate projects.

“I believe the most important contributions to these projects, which we can rightly call the transformation of Turkey’s health sector via the PPP model, come from Meridiam, who we are proud to be partners with, and the EBRD and International Finance Corporation, who from the first have not hesitated to support us. I thank all of them for their contributions and their faith in Turkey.”

The project includes an 888-bed main hospital, 150-bed high-security forensic psychiatric hospital, and 60-unit oral and dental clinic. The main hospital will include a 493-bed general hospital, 299-bed women/maternity and children's hospital, and a 96-bed psychiatric hospital. The main hospital is made up of three patient tower blocks surrounding a common core.