It is very tempting for an insolvency, restructuring and advisory news service to go with the story that folk have heard of. Remember at the heart of the Covid-19 pandemic when the BBC led with that story for 138 consecutive days? If you saw one more doctor in full PPE looking 'extremely concerned' ...
We could have gone with yesterday's 'Wilko story' - 'Jobs to Go as PwC Deadline Passes', or even today's slightly updated version - 'Canadian HMV Rescuer in Last Ditch ... blah, blah blah'. Let's see how it all pans out. Anyway, that would have led us to miss the bigger story; the albeit slightly late reporting of the total defeat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire to the Achaemenid Persian Empire in 539 BC. The fall of Babylon should not be undersold. The city's walls were all but impregnable until wily Persians devised a cunning plan to divert the course of the Euphrates River. Who knows how much the course of history was also diverted at that time.
In a re-run of history, Babylon Holdings, who maybe should have thought a little more carefully about the naming of their business, or just thought: "Tempting fate? Don't be ridiculous ..." Babylon is one of the world's fastest growing digital healthcare companies whose mission is to make high-quality healthcare accessible and affordable for everyone. It says on its website. Thing is, last night (Thursday 31 August) it appeared to be on the brink of collapse, as two of its divisions were placed into Administration, leading to some of the business's assets being sold to another company.
This is a big job for one of our very favourite clients. Alvarez & Marsal are leading the rescue bid, with their very own Mark Firmin and Andrea Jakes being appointed as Administrators over the holding company and one of its subsidiaries, Babylon Partners, its research and artificial intelligence division. Mark and Andrea were pretty upbeat about it, being quoted saying: "... this has secured the future of Babylon UK operations..." Good news indeed.
The platform Babylon Health has been used by 700,000 people in the UK, being championed by man-of-yesterday, former Health Secretary Matt Hancock. Babylon’s clinical services business, which includes its GP at Hand app, was sold solvently to US digital health business Emed Healthcare and Andrea says the sale of Babylon’s UK business to to Emed ensures the least possible disruption for Babylon users, which should continue to operate as normal.
Phew.
This one looks as if it is going to run and run, so we will be back with the Babylonians very soon.
