ICICI Venture has announced an investment of US $36 million through its holding company IVEN Medicare in Sahyadri Hospitals Limited (SHL) promoted by world renowned neurosurgeon Dr Charudutt Apte for an undisclosed stake.
The investment, accomplished in two phases of 18 months each, will be used to build a network of tertiary care hospitals, secondary care hospitals, centres of excellence, specialty spokes, and boutique hospitals across Maharashtra. Over the next one to two years, SHL would have a network of around 20 hospitals/centres across Maharashtra.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Charudutt Apte, chairman, Sahyadri Hospitals Ltd said, "At SHL we have always believed in and strived to live by our '3A' principle. It means we have endeavoured to make specialty healthcare Available, Accessible and Affordable. Thus, we have been committed to serve patients from all strata of society. Our expansion plans are to further this mission of ours.
"We realised that even in tier two and tier three towns which serve as nuclei to hundreds of satellite villages and hamlets, specialty medical aid is unheard of. We want to take world class medical aid there. We also realised that not only local doctors, but there are several others like, reputed localities and local business groups, businessmen, industrialists, wealthy citizens, social groups and organisations would love to help in / invest to open good hospitals but do not know whom to approach. SHL will attempt to work with such people to truly integrate itself into the interiors of Maharashtra. We are in receipt of proposals from well known doctors and others from several parts of the state and we are evaluating these propositions".
Speaking on the occasion, Alluri Srinivas Rao, director, investments, ICICI Ventures said, "SHL's core philosophy in offering ethical medical care, its efficient business model and growth plan attracted IVEN Medicare to invest in them. An IVEN Medicare senior team will work closely with SHL's management team to achieve their robust growth plan. ICICI Venture sees itself as a 'catalyst' and it is our endeavour to partner with people / organisations who have a strong, clear vision blueprint to bring about concrete, positive change in society and thereby help in nation building and betterment of society the nation progress.
"We are very happy to invest in Sahyadri Hospitals as we have seen Dr Charudutt Apte's passion translated into their flagship hospital at Karwe Road. We are sure our relationship will go a long way in bringing latest, world-class medical aid to each and every corner of bring about a change and will add value to our vision & mission and make it possible"
Dr Charudutt Apte added, "We want to 'Compliment and not compete' with the existing medical infrastructure of cities, towns or villages. If a particular town has an excellent orthopaedic hospital, we will not go and build another to compete, rather we will partner with the management of that hospital to start may be a state-of-the-art paediatrics or heart hospital so that particular town or district gets one more latest and fast medical aid".
The hospital group has pioneered several path breaking initiatives like CT angiogram based preventive healthcare package, healthcare loyalty card, happy hours, a programme that makes CT and MRI between 6 pm and 6 am, eminently affordable to the less privileged and needy. SHL will build this network of hospitals (Tertiary and Higher Secondary) in Maharashtra, through a mix of Greenfield and Brownfield initiatives.