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Egyptian healthcare tycoon Hend El Sherbini has spent $7.8 million buying more shares of Integrated Diagnostics Holdings, the London-listed medical testing group she runs, two months after her mandatory takeover offer for the company closed.
Hena Holdings Ltd., the British Virgin Islands company she owns with her mother, Moamena Abdul Wahab Kamel, bought 15,580,812 IDH shares at 50 cents each on the London Stock Exchange on Oct. 15, according to a regulatory notice the company published the same day. The purchase was worth $7,790,406.
The price is the same 50 cents a share that Hena offered every IDH shareholder in June. IDH's shares closed between 51 cents and 55 cents through most of September.
The notice did not give Hena's total holding after the trade. IDH said in its half-year report in September that Hena owned 56.67% of the company once the offer closed. With 581,326,272 shares in issue at the time of the offer, the new block amounts to about 2.7% of IDH and would take Hena's stake to roughly 59%, assuming it made no other purchases in the meantime.
Path to 75%
The purchase moves El Sherbini closer to the level at which she can take the company off the London market. Hena said when it launched its offer in June that it would seek to cancel IDH's listing if its holding reached 75% or more. It also said "it will continue to make purchases of IDH Shares on the market," subject to the UK Takeover Code.
The June offer was required under UK takeover rules. On June 23, Hena bought 126 million shares, or 21.67% of IDH, from Actis IDH Limited, an entity controlled by funds managed by Elliott Investment Management, at 50 cents apiece. That lifted its stake from 27.94% to 49.62% and, under Rule 9 of the UK Takeover Code, obliged it to bid for the rest of the company. The offer valued IDH at $290.7 million.
IDH's independent directors told shareholders to reject it, arguing that the price undervalued the business. Few sold at first. The offer became unconditional on July 28 after acceptances pushed Hena past 50%, and it closed on Aug. 12.
El Sherbini and her mother put up $43 million of their own money for the Elliott block and drew $20 million from a loan facility provided by RMBV, a private equity firm focused on Egypt and North Africa. The offer documents allowed for up to $107 million more in equity and up to $40 million in further loan drawdowns to pay for shares tendered.
A lab business in five countries
El Sherbini, a professor of clinical pathology at Cairo University, has been chief executive of IDH since 2012. The business grew out of a single laboratory her mother opened in Egypt in 1979. It now operates in Egypt, Jordan, Nigeria, Sudan and Saudi Arabia under brands including Al Borg, Al Mokhtabar, Biolab and Echo-Lab, and had 839 branches at the end of June.
The company listed in London in 2015. It reported revenue of 4.86 billion Egyptian pounds ($91.5 million) for the first half of 2026, up 37% from a year earlier, as the number of tests it performed rose 20% to 23.6 million. Net profit climbed 47% to 839 million pounds ($15.8 million).
"We are pleased to report a strong first-half performance," El Sherbini said in the results statement in September.
At the 50-cent price Hena paid on Thursday, a 59% stake in IDH would be worth about $172 million.
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