India-based Manipal Hospitals is reportedly planning to invest between INR15bn ($247.7m) and INR20bn ($330.3m) to expand its operations at home and overseas.
Manipal Health Enterprises (MHE) managing director and chief executive Ajay Bakshi was quoted by Businessworld as saying that around 2,000 beds may be added by the network within the next five years, with further plans to manage 6,000 more.
Around 2,000 beds and an additional 3,200 are currently being managed by the hospital network across its primary to tertiary care in South India and overseas.
The investment will mainly be used to build hospitals in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, towns and rural areas in the northern and western parts of India.
Bakshi said: "We are looking at both organic and inorganic route and will fund the expansion with internal accruals and private equity funding."
Recently, Manipal acquired a 200-bed hospital in Jaipur, India. It has a network of 15 hospitals, including five tertiary care and nine secondary care, as well as three primary clinics across four states in South India.
Manipal Hospitals, which is part of MHE, are currently located in Bangalore, Mangalore, Goa, Vijayawada, Salem, Tumkur, Visakhapatnam and Jaipur, India.
In addition, the group has acquired a hospital at Klang in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The Manipal Group has medical colleges in Malaysia, Nepal, Dubai and Antigua.
