September 30, 2020

North Channel Bank Finances Development of Medical Centers and Healthcare Centers of IWG Group

North Channel Bank provides corporate financing to IWG Medical Real Estate AG, a strategy consultant and project developer in the healthcare sector. The objective is to use these funds to establish medical and healthcare centers in Germany to address the current shortage of physicians.

Corporate Financing in the Healthcare Sector

“We are convinced that IWG has developed a unique business model to help cities, municipalities, and communities to secure and improve outpatient medical care for their citizens. We are delighted to be able to support these projects,” stated Harald Zenke, Managing Director of North Channel Bank. “In addition, through its cooperation with one of the largest law firms with a focus on medical law, the company is extraordinarily well connected with inpatient and outpatient care, the players in the healthcare industry, in particular the medical profession as well as their associations and organizations at municipal and federal level. This certainly contributes to the fact that the medical occupancy in these centers is secured.”

Financing of Medical Centers and Healthcare Centers

The IWG Group advises local authorities and players in the healthcare industry and develops, builds, and services medical and healthcare centers under the brand name MEDZENTRUM. The main concern of MEDZENTRUM Germany is the maintenance of efficient outpatient healthcare, also in rural areas. This can be achieved by creating new care structures that ease the pressure on doctors’ working hours and create attractive branch and workplace offers for doctors in outpatient care. New cooperation models are emerging both on an outpatient basis and across sectors, optimized by using digital facilities. The company network provides regions and municipalities with supply analyses for the respective supply. From these analyses it can be determined whether a medical and healthcare center or an alternative concept is the most appropriate solution for a region. In the course of the realization of medical and healthcare centers, MEDZENTRUM acts as project developer, offers tenants and other local investors the opportunity to participate in the newly created infrastructure via the project companies and assumes long-term responsibility as location manager.

“We are very pleased that in North Channel Bank, we have found a financing partner who, like us, intends to promote company-relevant projects,” says Dr. Andreas Bednorz, Member of the Board, IWG Medical Real Estate AG. “The increasing shortage of medical staff is a growing challenge but also an opportunity to pursue new endeavors. Together with the relevant regional players in the healthcare industry, we create new care structures with MEDZENTRUM medical and healthcare centers. MEDZENTRUM ensures that healthcare is available nearby, no less than the permanent availability of medical staff for the people locally”.

North Channel Bank GmbH & Co. KG was founded in 1924 as the privately owned bank Bankhaus Oswald Kruber located in Berlin. In 2009, a North American group of investors with expertise in the US Life Settlements sector acquired the bank and renamed it North Channel Bank. In the following years, the bank developed into one of the leading institutions in US Life Settlement financing. For many years, the bank has been working with the experienced and renowned US servicer NorthStar Life Services, LLC, a former affiliate, and offers not only financing but also investments in US Life Settlements. The affiliate NorthStar Life Settlements Trading, LLC, Irvine, California, renamed in 2020, handles the trading of policies in this business segment. In the Structured Finance division, the bank focuses, in particular, on financing in the renewable energy sector (focus: equity interim financing), capital goods, and growth financing.

IWG Medical Real Estate AG (IWG MRE) is a subsidiary of IWG Holding AG. Together with HFBP Rechtsanwälte und Notar (www.hfbp.de), the corporate group develops and initiates future-oriented models of medical care within a group of companies specialized in the healthcare industry and within the scope of the MEDZENTRUM network (www.medzentrum.de), as far as regionally reasonable integrated in modern MEDZENTRUM medical and healthcare centers.