Looking at growth rate of 17-18%: Apollo Hospitals

Apollo Hospitals  has decided to sell its 33% stake in Lanka Hospital to Sri Lanka Insurance Corportaion. The company will garner Rs 65 crore from the stake sale.

The hospital's Group President K Padmanabhan says that the money that they will get will be used for implementing some of the projects that they have in hand.

He adds that they are not looking at capital raising for the next 6-12 months. Padmanabhan further mentions that they are looking at a growth rate of 17-18% a year.

Excerpts from CNBC-TV18's exclusive interview with K Padmanabhan:

Q: Could you tell us what you plan to do with the Rs 65-70 odd crore that you have raised? Will it be infused for the capex plans or is it for other issues like debt payment or something of that sort?

A: We have an ongoing investment programme within India and this money would be used for implementing some of the projects that we have in hand.

Q: Any specific projects that you can tell us about?

A: We have projects in Tier II cities like Bhubaneswar and Vizag where we would be investing some of this money.

Q: Sometime back Cadila Pharma picked up a 50% equity stake in Akshaya Apollo Hospitals, which is an unlisted company. Will there be more such incidences of Apollo hiving off some of its stake to local pharma companies to raise cash?

A: In the case of Akshaya Ahmedabad, it was IDBI and ICICI, which sold their stake to Cadila and we more or less, maintained our original stake. There we looked at a strategic partnership with Cadila and on a case-to-case basis we would look at some of these opportunities.

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