Wine & Health: prestigious additional revenue for Burgundy Health facility!

Hospital revenue through wine: so French?

One of the most interesting areas of work of our Capital Investment in Health group -and perhaps the broader community of health infrastructure specialists- certainly is related to third-party revenue generation.

Behind the somewhat cryptic wording lies the possibility for health facilities to generate an income based on activities that are ancillary to their clinical set of services or completely disconnected.

For the former, think about the commercial services you find in a health facilities, from shops (florist, newsstand, vending machines) to TV rentals or access to internet for instance.

 

Or car parks, or else accommodation for patients’s families and visitors, or even energy produced by the facility and sold back externally.

For a recent example, see our Decide news about NHS generating £50 million in revenue through hospital car parks in 2021: click here.

Your Decide Hub also mentioned singular yet quite extensive cases of hospitals being bequeathed important source of incomes through book copyrights (click here for the beautiful story of Peter Pan’s rights owned by the London Great Ormond Street Hospital for children) or heritage buildings.

French hospitals are famous for being bequeathed over centuries hotels, mansions, castles, restaurants even (click here for Decide’s news on Paris hospitals selling their patrimony) and vineyards.

Yes, wine funds health. The most famous wine auction in Burgundy certainly is the annual auction sale of the Hospices de Beaune which generate dozens of million euros to the benefit of the regional hospitals of Burgundy.

Another example illustrates this curious yet inspiring trend: last week’s incredibly glamourous and prestigious auction of 109 bottles of Burgundy’s finest to the benefit of the Hospices de Nuits-Saint-Georges, garnering circa €2,5 million in one evening.

A hospital founded in 1270, it became financially autonomous in 1692 thanks to its land portfolio and in particular its exceptional vineyard. The Health facility is now focusing on the provision of old-age care and is very explicit about the significant contribution of the wine sales to its operational expenditures.

Exciting (one wants to suggest “inebriating”) opportunity?

 

As proposed months ago by your Decide Hub, this may actually inspire fiscal policies to entice bequeaths to hospitals or social services in exchange for tax discounts or rebates.

Such fiscal incentives, in order to trigger revenue generation and asset optimization, would also need to lean on staff training: managing a commercial offering or real estate is not necessarily the core expertise of health professionals.

The game seems worth it though, and one can only be tempted to raise one’s glass to the management skills and value for money of the Hospice de Nuits-Saint-Georges and their prestigious wine auction!

Click here to read more about this auction (article in French).