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ShareBangalore: Way back in 2005, India's second largest hospital chain, Fortis Healthcare Ltd. (FHL), set a record of sorts when it gobbled up Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre Ltd (EHIRC), in a Rs 585 crore deal.
"We got Escorts because of collateral damage. We are interested in more such opportunities," Shivinder Mohan Singh, managing director FHL, said on Tuesday, asserting the economic slowdown would actually throw up opportunities for the healthcare sector in India.
Healthcare companies that are either restructuring debt or are unable to run their businesses because they expanded too fast and do not have the cash to run them now are prime candidates for such targets, he suggested.
And given the spate of debt restructurings that corporate India is going through currently, there should be ample such opportunities including Wockhardt Hospitals in which the debt ridden parent Wockhardt Ltd is reportedly looking to hive off equity.
Till now, Fortis has consistently denied there was any interest in Wockhardt.
Again refusing to be drawn into a discussion on any specific company or opportunity, Singh said, "while we are interested in any good-quality assets that come by, there is no point in talking about it as it (the Wockhardt opportunity) has not happened yet," he said.
Apart from Fortis, the country's largest hospital chain Apollo Hospitals group too is reportedly in the race for a take in Wockhardt Hospitals. Wockhardt Ltd, apparently wants to raise money to pay off debts, which reportedly runs up to Rs 3,400 crore.
Talk of Fortis interest in Wockhardt gained strength last week when it sought the Securities and Exchange Board of India nod to raise Rs 1,000 crore through a rights issue that would enable its existing foreign investors to invest more money into the company.
Acquisitions are a part and parcel of the Rs 500 crore Fortis Healthcare's growth strategy which has a target of becoming a 40 hospital chain by 2012 from the current 27.
This would need an investment of $500 million, Singh said.
Strengthening its presence in the South the group elbowed into Apollo turf recently by picking up 56% in Bangalore based Apollo RM Hospital which it rechristened Fortis Hospital Seshadripuram on Tuesday.
This was the second acquisition in the region by the Delhi based chain after it acquired the listed Malar Hospitals Ltd., of Chennai late last year.
Earlier it had acquired a shell property in Mumbai from the Hiranandani group in Vashi which is being implemented under the public-private participation model with the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation while it also announced in January it maiden overseas venture with the acquisition of 58% equity in Mauritius based Clinique Dana at a cost of $7 million.
"We have the intention of at least three hospitals in Bangalore if not five and are currently in conversations," Singh said adding most of the growth would come from the West and South.
