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Aster DM Healthcare, a private healthcare service provider which primarily operates in GCC and India, said that its operational revenue in the third quarter of the current fiscal increased by 19 per cent year-on-year to ₹2,650 crore, and its net profit increased 61 per cent to ₹148 crore from 92 croresin the same period of the previous financial year
Commenting on the results, Azad Moopen, Founder Chairman and Managing Director, Aster DM Healthcare, said, “While we were all worried when Omicron hit and increased the number of Covid cases exponentially, it is relieving to see that this has not led to loss of many lives and the healthcare system is holding on. In the geographies that we are thickly present, vaccination coverage continues to improve with India vaccinating 75 per cent and UAE almost 100 per cent of its adult population.”
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Growth strategy
Moopen added that as part of Aster’s India focused growth strategy, “we are taking up multiple projects, especially brownfield facilities with low capex investment but high potential opportunity in many of the states. The first of its kind — Mother Hospital, a 300-bed hospital near Calicut — is being taken over for O&M with 140 beds ready for launch in the first quarter of FY23. There is also a likely brownfield expansion coming up attached to Aster MIMS, Calicut, in an adjacent hotel which shall add an additional 70 beds to the existing 680 capacity beds. These projects, adding 210 beds, will cost only ₹40 crore. We are coming up with a 200-bed multispecialty tertiary care greenfield hospital on leased land at Kasargod in Kerala at a cost of ₹140 crore to be completed within the next 2 years. In terms of capacity expansion at our existing hospitals, we are planning an additional 100 beds in Aster MIMS Kannur for which land has already been procured.”
The company also said that Aster Labs, its diagnostics vertical, continues to enhance its presence in both Karnataka and Kerala. As of December 31, 2021, there are 8 satellite labs, 57 patient experience centers and 1 reference lab, it added.
“We have an aggressive growth plan for this vertical and aim to reach 33 labs and around 400 experience centers by the end of FY23. As of December 31, 2021, Alfaone Retail Pharmacies Private Limited (ARPPL) — the entity that runs ‘Aster Pharmacy’ under brand license agreement — was operating 90 pharmacies: 69 in Karnataka, 13 in Kerala and 8 in Telangana. ARPPL plans to reach around 130 pharmacies by the end of this financial year and around 300 pharmacies by the end of FY23,” the company said in a release.
While the results were announced after trading hours, earlier on Tuesday, Aster’s shares on the Indian bourses traded flat at ₹184.4 apiece.
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