New Delhi: With the bidding deadline for Sahyadri Hospitals approaching on June 22, interested bidders including Manipal Health Enterprises and Fortis Healthcare are engaging with foreign lenders to raise financing of up to Rs 5,000 crore, people familiar with the matter said. The funds will be used to back their respective bids for the multispecialty hospital chain.
The two hospital operators are in discussions with banks including DBS Group Holdings, Deutsche Bank AG, Mizuho Bank, HSBC Holdings and Barclays, the people said, asking not to be named.
Aster DM Healthcare, another potential bidder, is yet to firm up financing discussions, the people said.
“Fortis and Manipal are in talks with global banks to raise anywhere between Rs 3,000 crore and Rs 5,000 crore to fund the acquisition of Sahyadri Hospitals,” one of the people quoted above said.
Spokespersons of Manipal, Fortis, DBS, HSBC, Barclays, DB and Mizuho did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), which owns a 98.9% stake in Sahyadri Hospitals, is selling the asset less than three years after acquiring control. Sahyadri was Ontario Teachers’ first control private equity buyout in India. The Canadian pension fund, which has more than $3 billion invested in India, hired Jefferies earlier this year to run the sale process.
ET had reported on December 6, 2024 that OTPP will launch a process to sell Sahyadri Hospitals. OTPP had acquired the company from Everstone Capital at a Rs 2,500 crore valuation, which had earlier bought the chain from founder Dr Charudutt Apte in 2019 for Rs 1,000 crore. OTPP is a global investor with net assets of $266.3 billion as on December 31, 2024.
Sahyadri operates 11 hospitals with 1,300 operational beds across Pune, Nashik and Karad in Maharashtra. Its facilities cover specialties, including cardiology, transplants, neurology and critical care. It has over 2,500 clinicians and 3,500 supporting staff. The company is empanelled under several government health schemes, including Ayushman Bharat and CGHS. It was founded in 1996 by Dr Apte, a neurosurgeon.
The bidding for Sahyadri comes amid consolidation in India’s hospital sector. Late last year, Blackstone and TPG-backed Quality Care India announced a merger with listed Aster DM to form India’s third-largest hospital chain with over 10,000 beds.
“Post the Covid pandemic, the Indian hospital segment has been in investors’ limelight due to a surge in primary market transactions with six hospitals concluding their IPOs, rising interest from new investors, predominantly private equity, for ownership, record FDI inflow into hospitals in FY24 at $1.53 billion, which is 50% of the overall investment in healthcare vs the 27% cumulative share since FY12 and aggressive bed expansion plans of listed hospitals,” Tausif Shaikh, India analyst-pharma and healthcare at BNP Paribas India, said in a report released last year.
