Date:20/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/20/stories/2008032051281900.htm

Business

HLL forms venture with Acumen Fund

Special Correspondent

To provide quality healthcare

50:50 partnership with a capital of Rs.20 crore
Acumen to invest an initial equity of Rs.7.83 crore

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Hindustan Latex Ltd. (HLL), which has been awarded the mini ‘Ratna’ status, has formed a joint venture with Acumen Fund of the United States to provide quality health care at affordable rates to low-income groups in the rural areas.

Chairman and Managing Director M. Ayyappan told reporters here on Tuesday that the joint venture, LifeSpring Hospitals (Private) Ltd., would have a 50:50 equity partnership with an authorised capital of Rs.20 crore.

Acumen would invest an initial equity of Rs.7.83 crore, which would support LifeSpring’s plan to open five hospitals in 2008 and 30 hospitals across the country by the end of 2010. The hospitals, with 20-25 beds, would focus on providing maternal and child healthcare services to low-income clients in the country. Acumen Fund is a non-profit philanthropy organisation that invests in social enterprises addressing poverty in South Asia and Africa.

Mr. Ayyapan said that more than one lakh women lost their lives every year owing to pregnancy-related complications. The first LifeSpring hospital set up by Hindustan Latex in 2005 had not reported a single mortality case and this high-quality care would be replicated in the new LifeSpring hospital network, he said.

The LifeSpring hospitals would charge only 30-50 per cent of the prevailing market rates for a normal delivery. This would work out to Rs.1,499 as compared to an average market rate of Rs.5,450. The new hospitals would come up in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra and the company was planning to have 140 franchised hospitals between 2010 and 2012.

Mr. Ayyapan said that HLL had drawn up diversification programmes and the company was proposing to set up a medical park on 500 acres of land at Chinglepet, near Chennai. A vaccine plant would be set up in the first phase at an estimated cost of Rs.150 crore.

The company was expecting a turnover of Rs.348 crore in the current year, which would mark a 40 per cent growth over the Rs.243-crore recorded in 2006-07. It targeted to cross the Rs.1,000-crore mark in 2011. In the wake of the diversification, the director board had proposed to change the name of the company, he said.