Healthcare businesses in the Gulf Arab region are expected to boom in coming years DUBAI — Two of Saudi Arabia’s largest private hospital groups will seek to list their shares on the kingdom’s stock exchange in 2014, banking sources aware of the matter said on Wednesday, aiming to capitalise on investor interest in the fast-growing healthcare sector.Healthcare businesses in the Gulf Arab region are expected to boom in coming years as a result of rising wealth coupled with an increase in so-called lifestyle diseases. Five of the six Gulf nations are in the global top 10 for prevalence of diabetes, for instance, according to the International Diabetes Federation.Healthcare spending in Saudi Arabia is set to increase to about 174-billion riyals ($46.4bn) in 2017 from 68.7-billion in 2010, according to a November 2012 report from Riyadh-based NCB Capital.Seeking to harness the growing demand, Sulaiman Al-Habib Medical Group (HMG), one of the largest private providers of healthcare in th...
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