KUALA LUMPUR: While KPJ Healthcare Bhd remains on the lookout for new assets, the private healthcare provider is focusing on optimising its current resources to increase its bed utilisation rate.
President and managing director Chin Keat Chyuan said that as of the end of the first quarter (1Q24), the group was registering over 60% bed occupancy, which is similar to the full-year figure from the previous year.
“We remain very optimistic with the very encouraging numbers in terms of our bed occupancy while we continue to expand our capacity to house more patients,” he said during a press conference in conjunction with the launch of the group’s rebranding yesterday, 43 years since its inception.
To note, KPJ Healthcare is significantly expanding its capacity, aiming to increase its bed count from 3,733 last year to about 4,101 by the end of this year.
Moreover, KPJ Healthcare, which operates 29 hospitals in Malaysia, one in Bangladesh and one in Thailand, will add another in Kuala Selangor, expected to open in 1Q25.
Meanwhile, Chin acknowledged that KPJ Healthcare has been actively looking for merger and acquisition opportunities, both greenfield and brownfield, over the past 10 months.
“As a hospital group, we have been looking for every single opportunity, organically or inorganically, to grow our business and strengthen our market share,” Chin said.
He emphasised that stringent due diligence is performed to ensure new opportunities complement the current portfolio.
“We have seen many opportunities, whether you’re talking about earlier Ramsay (Sime Darby Healthcare) or even now, as we speak, the Island Hospital in Penang, which is still on the table.
“Certainly, this is actually one of the areas that we’re looking at – inorganic growth – to help achieve exponential growth, as aspired,” he noted.
“We also inspire to do better by optimising our assets,” he added.
Meanwhile, health tourism contributed close to about 5% to 6% of KPJ Healthcare’s total business last year.
Moving forward, Chin said the group aims to increase this share, noting that the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council recorded about RM2.3bil in revenue from medical tourism last year, with KPJ Healthcare contributing around RM190mil.
“When we are looking at growth, organic or inorganic, one of the key elements is actually health tourism. We are looking to tap into the market and sweat our assets,” he added.
Regarding the possibility of injecting assets into Al-Aqar Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) to raise more funds, Chin noted that KPJ Healthcare is “not in a rush”.
He said the group is comfortable with its current financial standing and net gearing and instead, will be focusing more on affordable and attractive capital market opportunities.
Although the group’s five-year growth plan will require significant capital, Chin said injecting more assets into the REIT is not the top priority at this moment.
“We are not saying that we are totally ignoring that opportunity, but that might not be our number one priority in terms of getting a source of funds,” he said.
