THD NewsDesk, New Delhi: After pushing back a planned issuance last year, a Dubai-based operator of hospitals and pharmacies, Aster DM Healthcare Ltd. is planning to expand across India is revisiting a potential sale of dollar bonds.
According to Chairman Azad Moopen “Aster, which runs 26 hospitals and hundreds of clinics and pharmacies in the Gulf and India, will seek to issue about $400 million of securities possibly in the next three to six months.” The notes would mature in 7 to 8 years, and would retire and replace existing debt.
“Regarding the bond issue, we have started discussion with the bankers,” said Moopen, 68 in an interview. Because of Covid, the firm decided that they are not willing to go ahead with the sale early last year.
Aster is expanding across India, looking to open at least four hospitals there in the next four years. Moopen wants the South Asian nation of nearly 1.4 billion people to account for about a third of the company’s business.
However, currently only about a fifth of the company’s revenue comes from India.
