Apollo Hospitals shares up 12 percent

Bangalore: After having the healthy trading for whole day, Apollo Hospitals ended the day among top gainers with a gain of 70.35 (11.86 percent). The company opened its account today at 602 and touched the 52-week high value of 694 in the afternoon trade. Overall 333,072 shares were traded throughout the day with a current P/E ratio at 29.65. The 52 week stock price chart is on the left.

Apollo Hospitals is an integrated healthcare company, which owns and operates a network of primary, secondary, tertiary hospitals and clinics across India. As of March 31, 2009, the company directly owned a total of 20 hospitals across India with a capacity of 2,481 beds. In addition, it has a capacity of 1,875 beds through subsidiaries, joint venture and associate hospitals. The company's segments include healthcare services, which comprise hospitals, hospital-based pharmacies and consultancy division, and pharmacies segment, which comprise pharmacies. It also provides project management and operations consulting services to other hospitals. As of March 31, 2009, it operated a network of 873 pharmacies. Its pharmacies offer a range of medicines, surgical, hospital consumables and healthcare products. Most of its pharmacies have nursing stations attached. The nursing stations provide medical services, which include measuring blood pressure and dressing. In the quarter ended September 30, 2009, the company posted a net profit of 340.60 million as compared to 301.30 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2008. Total Income has increased from 3703.10 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2008 to 4581.50 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2009.

Other hospitals have also performed healthy and ended the trading in green zone. Indraprastha Medical, Kovai Medical Center and Malar Hospitals have gained 2.83, 7.09 and0.33 percent respectively. Out of five stock analysts following Apollo Hospitals, consensus recommendation is outperform. With 59,535 units of shares Franklin Pharma Fund holds the highest number of shares in Apollo Hospitals.