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ICICI Venture to invest $187 Mn in ten hospitals
By siliconindia
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Friday, 25 January 2008, 02:01 IST
Mumbai: A top official from ICICI Venture, a private equity fund, said that the company would place a combined investment of $187 million in ten hospitals through its holding company, IVEN Medicare India before the end of the year. The attempt is to tap the fast growing healthcare market in India, reported The Economic Times.
Making its fourth investment, IVEN Medicare has just picked up a stake for about Rs 50 crore ($12.5 million) in one more hospital. It is also finalizing two more agreements for a combined investment of about Rs 200 crore. It has another seven deals in the pipeline too.
"We will have a pan India presence before the end of the year," said Aluri Srinivasa Rao, director, ICICI Venture and IVEN. IVEN Medicare's holding companies will have a project pipeline of 10,000 hospital beds in mostly tier II and III cities, Rao added.
IVEN Medicare had announced two investments earlier this month. One was a Rs 65 crore in healthcare chain Medicare Synergie, based in eastern region, and the second being a Rs 140 crore investment in Pune based Sahyadri Hospitals for a 'substantial stake.' The investment in Sahyadri will be used to build a network of 17 secondary and tertiary care hospitals in tier II and III cities across Maharashtra, said Rao.
IVEN has created a $250 million fund for investing in the billion Indian healthcare market so far. The company plans to raise additional funds this year for future investments.
"We are looking at profitable hospitals with a management that is willing to grow their business quickly," said Rao. The Indian healthcare sector is projected to grow from $34 billion to $40 billion by 2012, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
According to a report by PwC, the private sector has a lions share in Indian health sector - 60 percent of all outpatient care and as much as 40 percent of all inpatient care are provided by them. Nearly 70 percent of all hospitals and 40 percent of hospital beds in the country are in the private sector.