George Stanatakis, investor relations manager at Euromedica, is denying that the company has tried and failed to raise €100m through a large rights issue, although he said that Euromedica was looking for external investors.

Other sources say UBS was attempting to raise €200m and that the company now has debts approaching 10 times EBITDA. They say that Euromedica management turned down several offers before the financial crisis hit Greece.

Ironically, Euromedica is in some ways one of the best-placed Greek hospital groups as it has a large portfolio of life threatening acute operations which it carries out for the Greek public health service and has less exposure to the discretionary market. We believe this fell 10-15% in 2009 and is set to fall further in 2010.

Stanatakis said that Euromedica had a lot of debt because it had bought a lot of assets and that these were more or less covering the debt burden at present. The group has permission to build 7 rehab units and an oncology hospital. Diagnostic clinics with imaging equipment, (often fairly basic) make up around a third of sales which Healthcare Europa estimates should hit €240m for the year. Full year results are out before the end of February.