In a move to trim its debt and strengthen its balance sheet, Fortis is raising $355 Mn by selling 100% stake in Altai Investments Limited, the holding company of Quality Healthcare, Honk-Kong, to British medical services group, Bupa. (Eco Times)
Its a good move as the company was purchased in Oct '10 for USD 193 Mio, netting a profit of $162 Mio.
After this sale 95% of its revenue will be ex India while it continues to retain minor presence in Singapore, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Dubai.
These moves & the earlier Singapore REIT issue will trim the debt by about Rs. 5,000 Crores to Rs 2,500 Cr.
In August, it had completed its divestment of stake in its subsidiaries Fortis Hoan My Medical Corporation, VOF PE Holding2 Ltd and Swindon Limited to Vietnamese hospital Viva Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Chandler Corporation for $80 Mn.
Also in May, the hospital chain completed the sale of its Australian subsidiary, Dental Corporation, for around $263 Mn, to Bupa.
Fortis Healthcare, which is turning its focus for future growth to the Indian healthcare market, is looking at a potential bed capacity of around 10,000 beds from its currently operational capacity of around 4,000 beds, in future.
Fortis plans to add over 1,000 beds from Greenfield projects in India. In May 2013, it launched its flagship, the Fortis Memorial Research Institute in Gurgaon. Two more projects, one each in Ludhiana and Chennai (Arcot Road) are nearing completion and will be commissioned in the next few months.
These are good moves as it strengthens the Fortis Balance Sheet and also underlines the huge potential of the sector in India itself given our large and growing population.
