How Bain Capital Made £554m From NHS Plasma Co

This guest post from Mike Cosgrove is an eye-opener. 

In the last 8 years, there has been a lot of skullduggery and profit squeezing occurring with the NHS plasma resources system. In 2013 the NHS UK plasma resources ltd was fully privatised, and it was sold off to Bain Capital, which is a private equity investment company based in the US. The Republican Party ex-presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, is a major partner in Bain Capital. In 2016 Bain Capital then decided to sell off the NHS plasma resources company and they made £544m in profits. Now the NHS plasma resources system is fully owned by a company called Creat Group that is based in Beijing, China. 


Jeremy Hunt was the Conservative MP who signed off on this deal, and he was the minister in charge of the NHS healthcare system at time. The Conservative party tried to bypass the negative media attention over this, and they did this by announcing the sale 6 weeks before the summer holidays of 2013. They also rushed it through parliament to avoid a political analysis on the sale. 


NHS UK plasma resources ltd has now been renamed to a company called Bio Products Laboratory ltd (see below). Directors include Xiaoying Gao who is the CEO and the vice chairman, he is based in America and is an American citizen. Director Xu Wu is a Chinese resident, based in China and Michael Mensa is the CFO based in the UK. Director Evan Selig is the company secretary and is also based in the UK. 


HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?


This was the process, in June 2013 Bain Capital incorporated Naga UK Bidco Ltd and Naga UK Topco Ltd so that they could acquire NHS UK plasma resources ltd. At that time, the NHS UK plasma resources company was 100% owned by the UK state (Department of Health) and was set up by Labour MP Lord Hunt. Naga UK Bidco Ltd was the company that bid for NHS UK Plasma Resources ltd at a total price of £140m and Naga UK Bidco Ltd was 100% owned by Naga UK Topco Ltd. Bain Capital Europe Fund III owned 80% of Naga UK Topco Ltd and 20% was owned by the Department of Health. (Note1)


In August 2013 the sale was announced and the privatisation process was complete. It then emerged that Bain Capital paid £90m for the NHS company and they promised to fund a life science research program for £50m, so the total cost equated to £140m. Bain Capital then renamed the ex-NHS company from Plasma Resources UK to Bio Products Laboratory Ltd, 3 years later they sold the company to Creat Group for £820m. Factoring in the 80% ownership means that Bain Capital made £544m in profits, in just 3 years. That is money made from the privatisation of a UK NHS state owned company. Now Creat Group, a Chinese company based in Beijing, owns the plasma resources company that serves the NHS. 


NOTE 1: The reason why Naga has two companies, one being ‘Bidco’ and the other being ‘Topco’ is because this is a structure used by private equity funds in order to bid for and acquire companies. Private equity funds use this structure regularly when they acquire companies. ‘Bidco’ is the entity that ‘bids’ for the company it wishes to acquire; in this case that target was NHS’s Plasma Resources UK.  The ‘Topco’ entity funds the ‘Bidco’ entity and if the bid is successful then the target company is transferred over to the ‘Topco’ entity when the sale and agreement is complete.   


HOW THE PRIVATISATION CREATED A ‘NATIONAL SECURITY’ RISK.


The original UK NHS plasma resources ltd company had a special contract that was based on US donors supplying blood to the NHS. The contract was set up by Lord Hunt, the Labour MP who was the head of the Department in 2002 when the company was state-owned. 


The contract was secure because NHS Plasma Resources was a state-owned company and a Chinese company did not own it, the UK taxpayer did. When the company was privatised and sold to Bain Capital in 2013, we lost full control and transparency evaporated, now the blood donor supply is in private hands. 


I believe this is a very large risk for the nation, especially now a private company in China owns it. 


Here is where it gets very interesting, the US foreign investment committee and the Conservative party now believe the same thing and they have stated this. In 2019 the US foreign investment committee asked Bio Products Laboratory to sell its operations in the US on the basis of 'national security concerns'. The US foreign investment committee has stated on record that BPL's US operations are a security risk, the same operations that are serving the NHS, it's utter madness. 


In October 2020 Conservative MP Ian Duncan Smith said that Creat Group owning BPL is a possible national security risk - yet he was a minister alongside Jeremy Hunt when it was privatised. His government resided over the sale to Bain Capital in 2013 and the sale to Creat Group in 2016, so why is he saying this now? I have one theory; 


I believe the US and the Conservative party are knowingly screwing over China's Creat Group because this is a typical trade war tactic. We will never know, but I believe that is the case and I believe that a British or a US private company will soon own BPL LTD. 


What will happen is that we will hear a lot more about China's role in the NHS and Ian Duncan Smith's announcement is just the first of this. 


Written by Mike Cosgrove 


References below:


NHS UK plasma resources ltd has been renamed as Bio Products Ltd and here is the website and details below. Their website is not even a secure website so if they cannot secure their own website, how can they secure our healthcare? 

http://www.bplgroup.com/

Bio Products Laboratory Ltd details.

Companies house sources for Bio Products Laboratory Ltd and its directors. 

Evan Selig, Xiaoying, Gao , Xu Wu and Michael Mensa. As you can see, 2 of these directors reside in China and in the USA. 

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07343036

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/04564631

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07343036/officers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio_Products_Laboratory

http://www.bplgroup.com/

Naga company details

‘Topco’

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08588260

‘Bidco’

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08588264

Bain Capitals announcement of privatization of the NHS UK plasma resources ltd. So one can say, we heard it from the horses mouth.

https://www.baincapital.com/news/bain-capital-purchases-nhs-blood-plasma-supplier

 


 


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