JPMorgan may invest in Narayana's realty assets

JPMorgan seems to have taken a liking to Bangalore-based cardiac care hospital Narayana Hrudayalaya. The US-based global financial company is understood to have shown a “keen interest” in helping the hospital, which has 140 acres in its land bank, to unlock the value of its real estate assets.

This interest comes just a few months after JPMorgan and AIG together invested Rs 400 crore for expanding the hospital's network across the country. It is learnt that the hospital chain is working on various options to raise around Rs 500 crore.

Industry sources said that Narayana Hrudayalaya got land from various state governments at a subsidised cost and the entire expanse of the area in each city may not be used to build the hospital.

"At the most, a third of the land at various locations is likely to be utilised for building the hospital. The rest can be commercially exploited," a source close to the company detailed. Company officials refused to comment on the interest shown by JPMorgan.

Narayana Hrudayalaya, which is owned by reputed cardiac surgeon Dr Devi Shetty, is planning to build 5,000-bed hospitals, christened "Health City" in Kolkata, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Raipur, Jamshedpur, Bhopal and Delhi in addition to the one in Bangalore.

According to the available information, the company has started construction of a 1,000-bed cardiac hospital on a 40-acre plot in Jaipur, and has been offered 37 acres in Ahmedabad by the Gujarat government and 25 acres by a private builder in Delhi. It is ramping up its Kolkata facility with a new 25-acre campus with 5,000 additional beds. The Tata Trust in Jamshedpur has offered an existing hospital to build a 5,000-bed health city.

Each of these health cities will have a 1,000-bed heart hospital and another 3,000-4,000 beds for other specialties such as cancer and neurology. The company's plan was to begin with 5,000-bed hospitals, aiming for 20,000 beds in five years.

Currently, the chain owns three hospitals in Bangalore and Kolkata with a total bed capacity of 2,500. The first health city is already being built in Bangalore, with specialities including cardiac, cancer, orthopaedics, eye care, neurology, and child- and women care.

Shetty, through his initiatives, has been bringing down the cost of cardiac surgeries through what he fondly calls the "Wal-martization of healthcare" by performing close to 30 open heart surgeries and almost equal number of catheterization procedures a day, almost eight times the average at other Indian hospitals.