Regina Maria

Management drive and support from MidEuropa created Romania’s largest private healthcare provider

 

Since MidEuropa’s investment in 2015, Regina Maria has increased its revenues by c.4x to become the largest private healthcare provider in Romania – and has ambitions to show the broader region what good healthcare looks like.

 

MidEuropa started its journey with Regina Maria in 2015 bringing its uniquely relevant experience gleaned during the successful buy-and-build strategies undertaken at LuxMed, Alpha Medical, Diagnostyka and Kent. These success stories established MidEuropa as the leading investor in healthcare services platforms, making it the clear preferred partner for management at Regina Maria. The management team has remained committed throughout the partnership and continues to grow the business domestically and internationally under MidEuropa’s stewardship.

The Romanian market provided an attractive opportunity for private healthcare due to continued strong demand from Romanian patients and corporate payors, driven by convergence with Western European service quality expectations and increasing levels of disposable income. By 2022, Regina Maria had become the largest private healthcare provider in Romania with nationwide coverage operating 8 hospitals (2 JCI-accredited), 56 own polyclinics with over 400 partner clinics, 36 medical laboratories and over 100 blood collection points, 27 imaging centers and over 650,000 patients covered under their employers’ subscriptions. 

Despite this period of unprecedented success for Regina Maria, it is only the beginning as the leadership team looks to further consolidate its position in the rapidly growing Romanian market, as well as to expand regionally. A first step was taken here with the firm’s acquisition of Serbian healthcare provider MediGroup, another MidEuropa portfolio company.

 

Transformational M&A

Less than a year after the investment, Regina Maria made the transformational acquisition of Ponderas Hospital in Bucharest. Ponderas originally specialised in bariatric surgery but, since the acquisition, has become a fully-fledged best-in-class healthcare provider across multiple specialities. Continued investment in Ponderas saw it become the first hospital in Romania to use robotic surgery in 2018 and gain the prestigious international JCI accreditation in 2020.

As of 2022, Regina Maria has invested over €200m making 30 acquisitions and building 18 greenfield facilities along with continuous upgrade of equipment and expansion of existing premises to ensure the patients enjoy the highest quality healthcare services and ever-improving user experience. In 2019, Regina Maria opened the Cluj Hospital, the only private hospital in the second largest city in Romania, as part of a methodical greenfield and M&A expansion effort in Central and Western Romania. 

Regina Maria started its international expansion in 2018 when MidEuropa acquired MediGroup in Serbia and invited Regina Maria’s management team to take on the responsibility for accelerating the knowhow transfer to the Serbian management team.  During 2021, MediGroup became fully integrated into the Regina Maria platform. 

 

Operational excellence

At the time of the 2015 investment, MidEuropa put in place a value creation plan to focus on medical excellence, patient experience and digitalisation.  These areas have been pursued by an ambitious management team over the last five years. 

The dedication to recruiting and retaining top medical personnel and key opinion leaders resulted in achieving best-in-class medical outcomes as well as solidifying the Company’s position as the premium healthcare operator in Romania. In addition to competitive remuneration packages, Regina Maria offers a clear career path and continuous learning & development opportunities, which help retain and motivate both doctors and nurses. In 2020, Regina Maria opened the European Nursing Academy in partnership with UK’s Coventry University offering Western-European accredited education and job opportunities at Regina Maria to graduates.  Regina Maria also invests in its people through two other educational arms: Surgical Training Institute and Royal Club of Doctors. 

Investments made in both facilities as well as HR have resulted in measurable improvements in patient experience. Regina Maria consistently ranks as the strongest healthcare brand in Romania with high NPS scores of 80-90+ across various divisions, and has enjoyed top ranking on various indicators (i.e. doctors, equipment, reputation, among others).

IT investments and full digitalisation of both back-end and customer-facing functions has allowed the Company to emerge as a regional leader in digital capabilities. Such digital readiness allowed the company to swiftly shift resources to its virtual clinic early in the pandemic to treat patients even when they could not visit the facilities.