Wockhardt plans Rs 1,000 cr capacity expansion

Wockhardt Group will invest Rs 1,000 crore in the next three years for expanding its healthcare infrastructure.

"We have lined up investments of Rs 1,000 crore, which will be spend in the next three years on tripling the capacity of our healthcare business," Wockhardt Chairman Habil Khorakiwala said on the sidelines of India Economic Summit organized by the World Economic Forum here.

The company has 15 hospitals in the country with a combined capacity of 1,500 beds and is going to increase it to 4,000 beds in the next three years.

The company is looking for private equity investment to raise the fund and is at the advanced stage of negotiations Khorakiwala said without giving further details.

"We will finalise the equity deals in next three-four months," he said.

When asked about the impact of credit crisis on the company's business, he said "healthcare is a sector, which would get least affected by this".

However, M&A activities will slow down because of liquidity crunch but we are not facing any problem for raising the fund, he added.

Wockhardt is looking at a growth of 20 per cent in the current year and expected to maintain it in near future.

Pharmaceutical and healthcare firm is expecting a better growth in its US business as it has around 50 approvals in pending, which is expected to come in a period of 18 months to two year.