Virtus Health Limited - Adora Fertility and three day hospitals from Healius Limited

Summary

Virtus proposed to acquire Adora Fertility (Adora) and three day hospitals (the Adora Businesses) from Healius Limited. Both parties provide assisted reproductive technology treatments, including in vitro fertilisation (IVF).

Virtus notified the ACCC of its intention to acquire Adora Fertility on 30 August 2021 and provided very limited information to the ACCC. On 21 September 2021, after notifying Virtus that it had concluded that it was not possible to grant early merger clearance, the ACCC commenced a public review of the transaction.

On 8 October 2021, Virtus notified the ACCC that it intended to complete the acquisition on 15 October 2021, even though the ACCC’s public review was ongoing.  On 13^th October 2021, the ACCC sought an urgent injunction to halt Virtus acquiring Adora Fertility (see ACCC Media Release here). The Federal Court of Australia granted an interim injunction then subsequently on 25 October 2021 granted an interlocutory injunction restraining the transaction from completing until the proceedings brought by the ACCC were finalised, or further Court order (see ACCC Media Release here and Federal Court judgments below).

On 17 December 2021, Virtus announced it had decided not to proceed with the acquisition and the ACCC announced it was likely to discontinue its proceedings in the Federal Court (see ACCC Media release here).