South Africa Healthcare Series 2026 Key takeaway: Structural pressures remain

Research evidence excerpt

South Africa Healthcare Series 2026 Key takeaway: Structural pressures remain

J P M O R G A N CEEMEA Equity Research

12 June 2026

South Africa Healthcare Series

Key takeaway: Structural pressures remain

We recently wrapped up our annual CEEMEA Healthcare call series and CEEMEA Chemicals and Healthcare

ACsummarize our key learnings below; recordings of the calls are available on Alex Comer

Morgan Markets (Discovery Health, Lenmed, Advanced Health, GLP-1s, NHI, (44-20) 7134-5945

Netcare). Overall, we get a tinge of deja vu when we write this note - as many of alex.r.comer@jpmorgan.com

the same dynamics that spelt cause for angst last year continue to persist. The South J.P. Morgan Securities plc

African private hospital industry continues to battle a largely stagnant insured pool,

an ageing population and increasing chronic ratio putting upward pressure on the

cost of scheme membership and prompting buy-downs, funders continuing to

tighten their belts against a backdrop of concerns around solvency, and labour cost

inflation remains a worry given the tight supply of healthcare professionals. Per

Discovery Health, day hospitals also continue to prove a threat and are taking

admissions share, but even Advanced Health (a specialist chain of day hospital) has

pared back its organic expansion plans since last we spoke - not an overly bullish

sign. However, rehashed bad news aside, we had a very constructive call with

Netcare following its 1H results. The company believes that losses of cases to day

hospitals is bottoming out, and that higher-acuity, higher-margin cases continue to

accrue to acute hospitals despite losing out on lower-acuity cases. Despite a modest

downgrade to FY26 PPD and revenue guidance, we were impressed by the strong