The Apollo Hospitals Group would finalise equity partners for its BPO arm, Apollo Health Street, in the next few weeks, according to chairman C Prathap Reddy.
“We are not looking at investors, but partners who are in similar business and can participate in the company's growth and foster the development of what we have built over the last 10 years,” Reddy said. The company was now in talks with two parties and the deal should happen over the next few weeks, he added.
“Our business has picked up, and Ebidta (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) has touched the $18-million mark. So, we are in no rush,” he told reporters. The BPO arm offers support services related to tele-medicine, education, training programmes, research and other projects.
The hospital major also said it would put more focus on expanding its business in India than in abroad. "For the time being, we will focus on investing in India as the country has a huge potential. Seeing the growing number of diabetic, heart and cancer patients in India, we are planning to set up more hospitals in these areas. Besides, we will invest in innovative technology to reach out to more patients," he said.
Apollo has plans to set up telemedicine centres across other geographies including Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Oman and Abu Dhabi. “We are going to roll out 10 clinics plus telemedicine centres in these countries in September,” he said.
Speaking on the sidelines of the two-day ‘3rd International Conference on Transforming Healthcare with IT 2012’, which kick-started here on Friday, Reddy said, “We are currently focusing on the wellness division, which started from Hyderabad, and is taking shape in other cities like Chennai. We hope to expand the division to more cities.”
The company is going to roll out a wellness plan in the next few weeks. It would set up 100 sugar clinics for diabetic patients across the country by next month, from the current 60, Reddy said.