Settle €12 million debt with HSBC, court orders St Philip’s Hospital

St Philip’s Hospital ordered by court to settle its €12 million debt with HSBC

St Philip's Hospital's former entrance (Photo: MaltaToday)
St Philip's Hospital's former entrance (Photo: MaltaToday)

The now-shuttered St Philip’s Hospital has been ordered by court to settle its €12 million debt with HSBC.

Claims by the company behind the defunct hospital that interest amounting to €5 million was “excessive” were thrown out by Judge Mark Simiana, who presided over the case. Golden Shepard Limited was ordered to pay the debt and legal expenses.

In 2023, the courts ordered the liquidation of Golden Shepard Limited, which is partly owned by medical doctor Frank Portelli’s Private Health Investment Limited.

The company’s last filed statements for 2007 registered losses of €160,000. The hospital shut its doors in 2010.

In 2018, the company had declared that it was unable to pay court registration fees of €60,000, apart from the outstanding ground rent for its sole physical asset, the St Philip’s Hospital.

Portelli was said in court to have resisted signing a €7 million constitution of debt in favour of HSBC, given that in 2010 he was hoping to sell his hospital in negotiations with the government’s Foundation for Medical Services.

HSBC Bank said that the €12 million debt comprised of €5.6 million in interest, but that with ground rent not being paid by Golden Shepherd, the company risked losing the property title to the landowner.

Portelli is a former Nationalist Party MP and in 2017 had unsuccessfully contested the PN leadership after it was vacated by Simon Busuttil.

In 2020, he had publicly declared that he was offering the government an agreement for the use of the hospital’s beds in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The offer was never taken up.