Amar Ujala buys majority stake in Cygnus Medicare for Rs 130 crore

Leading media firm Amar Ujala Ltd has acquired a majority stake in Cygnus Medicare, which operates a chain of super specialty hospitals, for around Rs 130 crore as part of its expansion plans in the healthcare segment.

Cygnus Medicare currently has more than 1,000 beds across its 10 super speciality hospitals in Delhi and Haryana.

"We have concluded a deal of around Rs 130 crore with Cygnus Medicare to take over their 10 hospitals and added our two hospitals in the overall portfolio," Amar Ujala Ltd Director Probal Ghosal told PTI.

The company has acquired a majority share in Cygnus Medicare with management control, he added.

On raising of funds for the acquisition, Ghosal said, "It is through internal accruals."

The investment of Rs 130 crore includes a significant primary commitment which includes the merger of two Ujala Healthcare hospitals as well as the secondary investment which provides an exit to angel investors and a partial exit to existing institutional investors, Amar Ujala said.

In the merged entity, Amar Ujala through its healthcare arm will hold a significant stake along with management control and balance will be held by Eight Roads Ventures, Somerset Indus, Evolvence India and previous promoters - Dr Dinesh Batra and Dr Shuchin Bajaj, respectively, it added.

"As part of the deal, Batra and Bajaj will be on the board of the merged entity and continue in their previous roles whereas I will be the chairman," Ghosal said.

Going forward, "we plan to have a total of 20 hospitals in three years. Idea is to create more access points and make it more inclusive with hub and spoke model. We also plan to create multiple access points at the primary care level", he added.

On the business model the company follows, Ghosal said: "We follow the asset light model. We take the hospitals on long term rent and sometimes on the revenue sharing model."

The company is also looking to provide inclusive primary and preventive healthcare access through innovative digital devices and solutions, he added.

The company is committed to create healthcare facilities in Haryana, Uttar Prdesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir, Ghosal said.

"We felt the need of creating infrastructure and multiple access points with high quality healthcare delivery systems and accordingly we ventured into this space to work for the underserved tier II and tier III people in northern India," he added.

Stating that the deal would greatly improve access to quality tertiary healthcare in tier II and III towns, Cygnus Medicare promoter Dinesh Batra said: "The asset light model being pursued, by both Amar Ujala and us, is highly scalable and replicable in the Indian context."

The prime focus is to attract highly skilled specialists and super specialists to smaller towns, he added.