Ramsay's French buy

The country's largest private-hospital operator, Ramsay Health Care, will push ahead with its European expansion, paying $223 million for Medipsy, a French mental health clinic network.

Ramsay last month entered exclusive negotiations to buy Medipsy, which has 30 hospitals and more than 2600 beds.

Ramsay managing director Chris Rex said the acquisition of Medipsy and the addition of the hospitals to existing French operations — Ramsay Sante — was a significant development.

"We are very excited about the opportunity to acquire this business and the scale that it will bring to our portfolio in France. It catapults Ramsay into a new league and firms up the strength of our European operations," he said.

"Since entering the market in 2010, we have been carefully pursuing a broader French expansion strategy and following some successful bolt-on acquisitions. This deal allows Ramsay Sante to gain significant scale in France."

At its annual meeting last week, Ramsay reaffirmed guidance of underlying net profit growth of 12 to 14 per cent this financial year, helped by expanding capacity both locally and overseas.

After the addition of Medipsy, Ramsay will have 4100 hospital beds in France, making it the country's third-largest hospital operator by number of facilities.

Ramsay Sante will assume financial debt and financial leases of about $3.7 million as part of the deal.