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Manipal Health Enterprises has made a bid to acquire the Sterling Hospitals chain comprising seven hospitals in Gujarat for around Rs 500 crore, Manipal's Chief Executive Officer, Mr Rajen Padukone, has confirmed.
“It would be a good fit. We have put in our bid (which closed on July 29),” Mr Padukone told Business Line .
Funding pattern
The group will use its own resources and the Rs 110-crore infusion it got from Kotak Private Equity late last year.
He said “if there is any gap, we would look at debt or private equity or both options” but that decision would come up closer to a deal.
A few private equity funds had approached Manipal, he said.
A Gujarat footprint, according to him, would mark Manipal's northern foray as previous acquisitions were in Goa, Vishakhapatnam and further South.
Over the next three years, the Rs 600-crore Manipal health set-up, among the top hospital chains in the country, plans to increase its bed strength from 1,600 across 11 corporate hospitals to 4,000.
Entering the north
It would be as a ‘greenfield' project built from scratch or as managed or acquired facilities. “We are open to new opportunities that are coming up in Orissa, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan.”
Robotics
The new pilot project with robotic surgery in Bangalore will be extended to the group's other hospitals after assessing its suitability to treating problems beside heart-related ones, he said.
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