Healius Retains Substantial Balance Sheet Flexibility Despite Its Announced Share Buyback Programme

In 2018 the former Primary Healthcare rebranded itself as Healius in an effort to signify the turnaround underway. The new CEO, appointed in 2017, is looking to new sources of strategic growth as well as dealing with prior underinvestment in systems, revamp of physical spaces and legacy issues with stakeholder management. There is much to fix in the business and we anticipate it to take two years to see the major benefits from the turnaround delivered in the financial results. The COVID-19 impact of lost pathology and diagnostic imaging volumes in fiscal 2020, and expected to spill over into fiscal 2021, has stalled the turnaround, as it has exposed the combination of high operating and financial leverage. However, the business focus created by selling the medical centres in fiscal 2021, which were weighing down the turnaround, is viewed as a positive strategic step.