After making a fortune by selling its 63 per cent stake in Paras Pharma, Actis PE says it has no plans to exit Sterling Addlife Hospitals, originally backed by the Ahmedabad-based personal care products maker.
Sterling Addlife was demerged from Paras Pharma before the latter was sold off to Reckitt Benckiser. In 2006, Actis had invested close to $15.5 million to acquire a 41 per cent stake in Addlife Medical Institute, which owns Sterling Hospitals.
According to sources privy to the information, Actis has ever since raised its stake and now has close to 80 per cent in Sterling. The remaining stake lies with Girish Patel, the chairman of Sterling Hospitals.
“We have no plans to exit Sterling at this time,” said J M Trivedi, managing director of Actis PE, in an emailed response.
“Our investment period is normally up to six years, but we have remained invested in some deals for more than eight years. We made our first investments in sterling in 2006.”
Girish Patel said, “We are partners and have been working for a long time. We are still together.”
Sterling plans to first consolidate its presence in Gujarat and then look beyond the state. It plans to have 1,100 beds by the end of March, compared to 900 beds at present. It operates five hospitals in Ahmedabad (300 beds), Vadodara (110), Rajkot (190) and Mundra SEZ (100) and Bhavnagar (180). The recently started Bhavnagar facility came up at an investment of around Rs 50 crore.
It may be mentioned here that Paras, known for brands such as Moov, D’Cold and Krack, was sold to UK-based Reckitt Benckiser for Rs 3,260 crore. Patel made around Rs 1,000 crore crore by selling his 30 per cent stake to Reckitt.
Patel now plans to invest in privately-held companies to pick up minority stakes and utilise part of the funds to start a business venture for his son.
