Dubai-based Aster DM Healthcare is looking at potential acquisitions in Europe and Australia and has been approached to use its experience in India and the GCC to enter the African market as an operator, according to the company’s senior executives.
“We think most of our presence will be in the GCC but we are looking at other geographies through some other business models,” chairman and founder Dr Azad Moopen told Arabian Business during an interview at the company’s headquarters in Dubai’s Business Bay.
Founded in 1987, Aster DM Healthcare employees 17,800 people across 21 hospitals, 113 clinics and 219 pharmacies in nine countries in its core markets of India and the GCC.
“I think if we want to go outside these geographies, which itself have a lot of opportunities for the next few years, we want to look at something which is more from an acquisition model,” said Alisha Moopen, executive director and CEO of Aster and Medcare Hospital & Clinics.
“I don’t think we have any intention of going greenfield and set up from scratch,” she said, adding that the company is looking at potential opportunities in Europe, such as the United Kingdom and Finland, and Australia.
Africa is also on the healthcare firm’s radar, but more as an operator rather than an investor in infrastructure.
“We might look at other models like operating models. There have been interest from people in places like Africa where they are keen on investing in healthcare,” Alisha Moopen said.
“We might not actually invest in physically but we are happy to operate. So we might look at using our clinical expertise as operators in other markets,” she added.
Aster DM Healthcare debuted on the Bombay Stock Exchange in February last year, raising $153 million from a 10 percent stake.
The company is currently three years into a five-year expansion plan and has so far invested AED750 million ($204 million) of the AED1 billion it plans to spend.
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