Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Jan 25, 2006
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Jan 25, 2006 |
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Corporate
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Mergers & Acquisitions Industry & Economy - Medical Institutions & Hospitals Manipal group earmarks Rs 150 cr for more buys Madhumathi D.S.
Bangalore , Jan 24 THE Manipal group has made its first domestic hospital acquisition and is on course for some more takeovers and a major expansion in the next two years, according to top brass. The Ramdas Pai-owned major in education and healthcare plans to invest "at least Rs 150 crore" towards its future acquisitions in the next 18-24 months. The Bangalore Children's Hospital & Research Centre, which it acquired a few days ago, will be the first of such buys that are planned in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, and smaller cities in the next 18 months, Mr R. Basil, Director and CEO of Manipal Health Systems, told Business Line. Including the cost of acquisition, the Manipal group would immediately invest Rs 25-30 crore in restructuring the new entity into a larger, multi-specialty wing under a new Manipal brand name. The group is looking out for at least 3-4 acquisitions along different business models, he said, without elaborating. New hospital campus: On a parallel track, in the next two years the group's existing 600-bed Rs 150-crore Manipal Hospital in Bangalore would create a new campus on property owned towards the emerging Hebbal-Devanahalli area. Without divulging the expansion outlay, Mr Basil said that this one would be much larger than the existing 6,000 sq ft one on Airport Road. It would initially have an ultra-modern 500-bed hospital scalable to 1,000 beds. All these activities would be financed through private equity funds. "Bangalore has grown as a city and there are not enough beds for locals. (On the new campus) we are looking at having new services in a big way such as transplant services, positron emission tomography (PET, used in cancer treatment), and even robotic surgeries to meet the global and local demands of the future," Mr Basil said. The newly acquired BCHRC, a 12-year-old, 125-bed hospital, gives Manipal a new footprint in south-western Bangalore, off the busy Mysore Road. Having focused so far on paediatric care, its bed strength would now be doubled and new equipment installed to cover women's health, orthopaedics, trauma, and accident relief. This is the second major investment in hospitals in recent months in the city; in December 2005, Apollo Hospitals Enterprises made its first partial acquisition by picking 51 per cent stake in Imperial Cancer Centre and Multispecialty Hospital for Rs 29 crore. Mr Basil said: "Bangalore needs space and we are trying to create more facilities and add 10-12 specialities. The acquisition of Bangalore Children's Hospital was an opportunity to fill that shortage." Overall, the hospital division currently has a total bed strength of 7,000 through its 11 big and small hospitals spread across Bangalore, Manipal, Udupi, Mangalore, Goa, Sikkim, and Nepal. Mr Basil said that the big picture would be to reach 10,000 beds, a healthcare turnover of Rs 1,000 crore, and Asia's top 10 league by the year 2010.
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