It's reporting season for publicly listed companies in Australia and perusing the balance sheets always throws up some interesting stuff, like Telstra Health's $77 million write-down of goodwill on a couple of it assets and Primary Health Care's huge $587 million impairment from its medical centre business.
We don't often follow the fortunes of private hospital operator Healthscope but we had a look this week and discovered that just as it has exited the Australian pathology market, it has now removed itself from medical centres too, selling its 43 standalone practices to Singaporean outfit Fullerton Health. It still has its toe in the New Zealand pathology market through its ownership of Southern Community Laboratories though, with its new Wellington lab fully automated and digitised and pretty close to 100 per cent of pathology orders and results through this lab now electronic.