Metropolis Healthcare gets SEBI nod, moves for Initial Public Offer

New Delhi: Metropolis Healthcare has received markets regulator Securities Exchange Board of India's (SEBI) approval to float initial public offerings. With this approval, Metropolis will be the fourth diagnostic company to look at an IPO after Dr Lal Pathlabs, Thyrocare Technologies and SRL Diagnostics have tapped the market.

Metropolis Healthcare's IPO will see an offer for sale of up to 50,17,868 equity shares by Sushil Kanubhai Shah and up to 1,02,51,816 equity shares by CA Lotus Investments.

JM Financial, Credit Suisse Securities (India), Goldman Sachs (India), HDFC BankNSE 1.22 % and Kotak Mahindra Capital Company are the managers to the issue.

The Sebi's observations are necessary for any company to launch public issues such as initial public offer (IPO), follow-on public offer (FPO) and rights issue.

Medical Dialogues had in September 2018 reported about Metropolis Healthcare filing its draft Red Herring Prospectus with market regulator SEBI for proposed to IPO (initial public offer). It had proposed IPO of over Rs 2000 crore

Metropolis, under the leadership of Ameera Shah, has charted an aggressive growth and expansion path in the past 17 years. Metropolis is backed by private equity fund KKR and a Carlyle Private Equity portfolio company.

With more than 4,500 employees, it has grown from 300 centres in FY 2015 to over 2,100 centres and 100-plus labs in FY2018. The company has 8,000 pick-up points from where it collects samples.

In 2015, The Carlyle Group announced that an affiliate of Carlyle Asia Partners IV has bought a 37 per cent stake in Metropolis Healthcare Limited, a multinational chain of pathology laboratories. Carlyle acquired the stake held by Dr GSK Velu and his affiliates. The deal approximately cost Rs 900 crore

The same year in April, the Shah family had raised its stake from 36 per cent to 63 per cent by acquiring 27 per cent from private equity firm Warburg Pincus for Rs 550 crore with the backing of KKR India.

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