Wipro chief Azim Premji-backed investment venture PremjiInvest has placed $20 million in oncology care company Healthcare Global Enterprises Ltd (HCG) for a “significant minority stake,” according to chief investment officer Prakash Parthasarathy. The funding would be deployed towards expanding HCG’s operations in India, by adding five additional centres to its existing network of 10 oncology care centres.
Post the investment, HCG appointed Parthasarathy and Bobby Mustafa from PremjiInvest to its board.
HCG’s chairman and chief executive Ajai Kumar said that the company aims at having a network of 20 cancer care and research centres in a hub-and-spoke model by 2013. “This includes setting up of three centres of excellence and many regional centres across India, each regional centre costing between Rs 8 crore and Rs 10 crore, while the three main centres would involve investments of around Rs 50 crore,” Kumar told the media.
The cancer care hubs would be set up in Bangalore, Delhi and Ahmedabad. HCG has regional centres in locations like Nasik, Hubli, Shimoga, Erode and Ranchi among others.
Kumar said that the company was looking for acquisitions in regions like Cuttack, Ludhiana and Dehradun. HCG would consider being public after 2013, depending on the prevalent market conditions then.
PremjiInvest said that it viewed healthcare as an attractive sector and had earlier invested in many public healthcare ventures. The company was capable of investing further in HCG depending on its growth-needs, Parthasarathy said.
