As Manipal Hospitals joins India’s listed healthcare leaders, MD & CEO Dilip Jose says the next phase of growth will be based on integrating acquisitions, expanding into underserved markets and improving clinical complexity as large hospital assets become harder to find. Jose tells Rica Bhattacharyya that Manipal is focused on execution rather than chasing market-cap rankings. Edited excerpts:
After listing, Manipal joins the league of listed healthcare majors. What will define the next phase of growth?
We have focused on rigour of execution, on ensuring that more and more advanced and complex work is getting done in our hospitals, and patient experience remains in focus. We would want to ensure that all those things continue in the future too. If you focus on fundamentals, we will continue to grow.
Is becoming the biggest player in country an ambition?
It is not really about whether we are the largest or otherwise. We should be relevant in the geographies where we are.
With Apollo, Max and other players also expanding, how do you see the competitive landscape?
The organised sector in healthcare is a small fraction of healthcare. India’s healthcare burden is handled by nursing homes and neighbourhood hospitals. There is opportunity for everybody. Manipal is good at tertiary and quaternary care. That is what we will continue to do.
Large hospital acquisitions have been a key part of Manipal’s growth story. Will that continue after listing?
The latest acquisition we had was Sahyadri in Maharashtra. Our focus would be to fully integrate Sahyadri into the Manipal network, including brand transition, and then execute the additional capacity that we have planned. When you look at other opportunities for acquisition, we believe large-scale chains are not available at the moment. Sahyadri possibly was the last scaled asset which will be in the market for some time. We would want to look at opportunistic acquisitions in areas of interest to us. We would also focus on geographical expansion in new regions such as Kerala, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam as well as expand our presence in existing regions in the East, West and NCR.If large acquisitions are limited, is the next phase more about execution?
Execution is something that we would want to be focused on. We are adding capacity. Today, we are the largest hospital group in the country with 13,000-plus beds and 50 hospitals. We are adding 3,000 beds over three years. Our utilisation today is 65%, so we have headroom to utilise the capacity.
Healthcare affordability remains a concern. How will Manipal balance growth with affordability?
Affordability is something we have to be mindful of. We would want to grow ARPoB (average revenue per occupied bed) through complexity and not price increases. Pricing growth is 3-4% per year, but complexity growth is what is driving ARPoB.
India continues to face a shortage of hospital beds. How does that shape your expansion plans?
We are at 1.5 per thousand. WHO says three per thousand. Even if you consider that some parts are taken care of by other systems, India’s 2.5 million beds available today is half of what the country needs. People like us only fill one part of India’s healthcare needs-tertiary and quaternary care. There are opportunities in primary care, preventive care and wellness also.
