The Apollo Hospitals Group on Wednesday said it is in talks to acquire 30 per cent stake in a hospital in Nigeria for $12 million (about Rs 52 crore).
Since the group has to invest in the 250-bed hospital's revamp, the acquisition price "is still not very clear", said the group's managing director, Preetha Reddy. However, she refused to divulge the name of the target hospital.
The Chennai-based group is also planning to invest in a greenfield 200-beded hospital in Ethiopia in association with a business group there, she said on the sidelines of a function to announce the signing of agreement for the 100th franchise of Apollo Clinic.
Speaking to reporters, Chairman Pratap C Reddy said the group, which will be celebrating its 25th anniversary on September 18, has plans to digitize its patients' records.
"By December this year, we will be announcing a major initiative to digitize all our patients' records which can be retrieved using a universal health ID," he said. This initiative that is expected to cover over 10 million users who have availed some service from this group, will be rolled out in a phased manner.
The software for this initiative is being developed by TCS and the database will be stored and managed by IBM, Reddy said. This initiative is expected to cost the healthcare group $2 million (Rs 8.6 crore).
The Apollo Group expects to add another 100 clinics in the next two years. The group had taken nearly eight years to set up the first 100 clinics across 35 cities in the country.
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Company executives said that the second phase of expansion would have more group-owned clinics, while in the first 100 clinics only seven are being owned by Apollo.
"We need to process at least 150 applicants before we appoint a franchisee. Since this is a major challenge, a bigger percentage of the next 100 clinics will be owned and run by the Apollo Group itself," said Ratan Jalan, CEO of Apollo Health and Lifestyle, which manages the Apollo Clinics.