More than 4 new hospitals are planned: Apollo Hospitals

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ED-Finance at Apollo Hospitals , Suneeta Reddy says that they are not looking at changing the structure in terms of stake holding in the company right now.

She adds that they have planned more than four new hospitals and they will be expanding their capacity in Madras where they are adding another 200 beds. She also says that they have acquired a five-acre land in Bhubaneswar where they are putting up a 250-bed hospital.

Excerpts from CNBC-TV18's exclusive interview with Suneeta Reddy:

Q: Give us one word on whether or not you been looking at changing the structure in terms of stake holding in the company?

A: We are not looking at changing the structure right now.

Q: The promoters are not looking at increasing their stake and perhaps the government of India decreasing their stake a bit?

A: We have an agreement with the government and right now, there are no talks about restructuring that agreement at this time.

Q: Are there any fund raising plans immediately for your expansions as you have some four new hospitals planned?

A: More than four new hospitals are planned. We are expanding our capacity in Madras where we are adding another 200 beds. We have acquired a five-acre land in Bhubaneswar where we are putting up a 250-bed hospital. We are also doing a hospital in Vizag, we are adding capacity in Hyderabad. We just bought into a hospital in Bangalore, which is another 250 beds. So there is quite a lot of expansion; a total of 1,000 beds is what  we are planning in the next two years.

Q: When would these breakeven, the 1000 beds that you would be adding?

A: Some of them will become operational in the next 12 months and 500 beds in another 12 months. It will take atleast 24 months for them to breakeven.

Q: How are you raising money for all these expansion plans, or are you sufficiently funded at this point?

A: We did a GDR some time ago and we raised Rs 290 crore. We deployed most of that money in both acquisitions and in acquiring the land; our debt equity ratio is 0.4:1. So we could definitely increase that and access some more debt to do what we require to do.

Q: In this phase of expansion what would your revenue growth be like for the current year and the next year?

A: For the next two years, we are looking at a 30% topline, which we achieved. But we do not want to give any profit guidance at this time.