NMC Health, a leading GCC and international private healthcare operator that collapsed amid allegations of a multibillion-dollar fraud, filed for bankruptcy protection in the US and could liquidate as it faces shareholder lawsuits over its financial irregularities, said media reports.

 

The holding company of the UAE-based healthcare provider NMC Group, which does business mainly in the Middle East but also in other regions, including the US, was placed into administration by a UK court last month following the discovery of a hole in its books of more than $3 billion, reported The Wall Street Journal.

 

Joint administrators for NMC Health have declared that amid the mounting crisis, the company will probably be dissolved or put into liquidation.

 

Administrators from the consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal Europe were appointed in April to oversee the hospital operator, after an application from one of its biggest creditors, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.

 

The bank has since begun criminal proceedings against an unspecified number of individuals at the company, which has been delisted from the London Stock Exchange and is now the subject of a UK accounting investigation, reported Reuters.

 

NMC had raised its debts to $6.6 billion, $4 billion more than what it had previously disclosed. Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB), the company's biggest lender, said in April it had begun criminal proceedings against an unspecified number of individuals in relation to NMC.

 

The hospital operator, which is now de-listed from the London Stock Exchange, was put under administration by London's High Court on April 9 on ADCB's application, stated the report.

 

The joint administrators also said that based on their current estimates, they anticipate the company's preferential creditors could receive a dividend of approximately 100 pence, it added.

 

The administrators said it would not be possible to conclude the outcome of the process until all investigations had progressed and the liability position was ascertained.

 

They also stressed that all of the constituent members of the wider NMC Group, the largest private healthcare provider in the UAE, were continuing as previously.