The Hindu Business Line : GE eyes acquisitions in India

New Delhi, Sept. 10 General Electric Co (GE) is scouting for acquisitions to scale up its presence in India. The diversified engineering and services major is looking across a gamut of sectors for opportunities to acquire firms, especially the core infrastructure, healthcare and the media space.

“We are looking across the board for opportunities (for acquisitions). Core infrastructure is definitely an area where we are evaluating options, while healthcare, and media space could also be other possible areas,” Mr Tejpreet S. Chopra, President and Chief Executive Officer, GE (India), told Business Line. He said the targets could include suppliers and customers in these sectors.

According to industry players, GE Healthcare, the $17-billion healthcare division of GE Co, is already on the lookout to acquire local diagnostic equipment makers in India. GE Healthcare, Philips Medical Systems and Siemens AG occupy the top three slots in the Indian medical imaging market with more or less an equal market share.

State projects

Besides plans for inorganic growth, Mr Chopra also said that GE Healthcare is in talks with many of States to deploy its high-end medical imaging and diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies under a private public partnership (PPP) model. GE has already kicked off this initiative in Madhya Pradesh and is in deliberations with other States that are keen to replicate the model.

“We are talking to a lot of State Governments right now and a number of projects are currently under discussion,” he said. The key objective of the partnership, he said, is to provide quality healthcare services at affordable costs.

He said GE would leverage its expertise in high-end technological interventions such as medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies under the partnership model involving State governments and local medical institutions.

GE Healthcare had, late last year, announced its first PPP in India with the signing of a contract between the Government of Madhya Pradesh and Sanya Hospitals and Diagnostic Centre. Under the partnership, GE Healthcare is helping in setting up an advanced, high-tech diagnostic centre at the Netaji Subash Chandra Bose Medical College Hospital in Jabalpur.

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