Apollo Hospitals to raise Rs 450 crore by selling stake in subsidiary

Hyderabad : With an aim to raise funds to expand its clinics business, Apollo Hospitals will dilute some stake in the vertical for Rs 450 crore this fiscal, a top company official said.

"Now the big focus is on clinics. So we have closed that investment round which will shortly get formalised. We will be signing soon. It is Rs 450 crore for Clinics Division which includes Spectra, Cradle and Day Surgery Centres.

"We will be raising that money very shortly. We are bringing an equity partner by diluting some stake in AHLL (Apollo Health and Life Style)," Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director of Apollo Hospital Group, told reporters here.

AHLL is a 100 per cent subsidiary of Apollo Hospitals Enterprises Limited. The company runs the largest chain of standardised primary health care models multi-speciality clinics under the brand 'Apollo Clinics' in India and the Middle East, diabetes management clinics 'Apollo Sugar' and diagnostic centres 'Apollo Diagnostics'.

The company also operates speciality formats 'Apollo Cradle' for women and children and 'Apollo Spectra' for planned surgery.

Apollo Hospitals recently said it would raise Rs 300 crore from institutional buyers through allotment of secured redeemable non-convertible debentures.

"We will complete the deal by the end of this financial year. The clinics number will go to overall 150 from the existing 78 (owned and franchisee). Cradles will go to 20. Currently we have seven," she said, adding that the expansion is expected to be completed in three years.

However, Reddy refused to give details about the investor, saying discussions are still going on.

"They are from healthcare industry," she added.

Replying to a query, she said the current bed capacity is 9,300 and with the addition of Mumbai the figure will cross 10,000.

Apollo Hospitals also announced the seventh edition of its flagship conference 'The International Conference on Transforming Health care through IT', to be held on October 21-22 in Chennai.

"The one of its kind conference themed on leveraging IT in health care and patient safety is a platform to bring forth key developments and success stories wherein technology has been harnessed to improve the overall health care ecosystem across the globe," she said.

This is the only platform in the country that brings together leaders in the domain with an intent to exchange knowledge and exhibit what technology can do to improve the quality of life through health care, she added.