Radiant lifecare plan to acquire Sahara Hospital Business

New Delhi: Radiant Life Care Private Limited has showed interest in Sahara's Hospital business valued at around Rs 1,000 crore,a recent report in TOI points out.

Sources of the Sahara hospitals told TOI in this regard, “We are looking at both outright sale as well partnerships."

Sahara Hospital is a tertiary care private hospital in Lucknow, capital city of Uttar Pradesh state of India. The hospital is a venture of Sahara India Medical Institute Limited, a subsidiary of Sahara Prime City Limited.

The Lucknow hospital has the capacity of 350 operational beds is built on 27 acres land, which can be scaled up to 550. Moreover, the company is reported to have a huge land bank for future expansion, which could be used for expanding into Bihar, Jharkhand, rest of UP and adjoining areas.

The report of Radiant showing interest comes after the fact that the company has submitted an expression of interest for acquiring the Sahara Based Hospital.

Radiant Lifecare had earlier took over management control of iconic hospitals like BL Kapur in Delhi and Balabhai Nanavati in Mumbai, may be vying with other potential bidders like Apollo Hospitals Enterprises and Baron Khaleed Hameed of UK, who hails from Lucknow.

Radiant is currently in discussions to raise at least Rs 1,000 crore from private equity giants KKR and Evertsone Capital to fuel its acquisition drive. Radiant, which is currently doubling the bed counts in its two hospitals to over 2,000. Radiant has been in talks with multiple stand-alone hospitals in top metros for acquisitions, as investors, who backed doctor turned entrepreneurs try to unwind exposure triggering consolidation moves, reports TOI

Radiant's foray in the healthcare sector commenced with the redevelopment of BLK Super Speciality Hospital (“BLK") at a cost of Rs 3,500 million. Originally setup in 1959, inaugurated by Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru, BLK has more than 60 years of heritage. With Radiant, the present facility of BLK was completely rebuilt and re-launched in 2009 as a 650 bed state-of-the-art super specialty tertiary care hospital, with a built up area of 650,000 square feet. Spread over 5 acres of land located in the heart of the capital city, at Pusa road in Karol Bagh, Delhi, BLK is amongst the largest stand-alone private hospitals in the National Capital Region ("NCR").

Sahara Group and Radiant Life Care declined to comment on the ongoing rumors about the acquisition.

Recently, the Supreme Court on February 28, Sahara India Group was directed to deposit Rs 5,092.64 crore with Sebi by April 7 to seek bail for its chief Subrato Roy. While extending his parole till April 17, the apex court had asked Sahara India Group to sell at least 15 properties that are free from all the encumbrances to raise the required deposit amount, reports DNA