Metro Pacific eyes another hospital, sees P1-billion income from healthcare

MANILA, Philippines - Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), the local flagship of Hong Kong-based conglomerate First Pacific Co. Ltd., is looking to clinch another deal that will allow it to expand its healthcare service portfolio to five by the end of the year and hit P1 billion in net income from this business.      

On the sidelines of the company’s annual stockholders meeting yesterday, MPIC executive director Augie Palisoc Jr., who is in charge of the group’s hospital business, said negotiations are ongoing for the acquisition of a new hospital which he declined to identify.

“We’re looking at one more acquisition before the end of the year. Our goal is to have a total of 10 hospitals and hit P10 billion in revenues and P1 billion in net income,” he said.

Last year, the healthcare business contributed P174 million to MPIC’s total net income.

Palisoc said the target hospital is smaller than the recently-acquired Riverside Medical Center Inc. (RMIC), a 336-bed hospital in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental.  

He said the group is training its sights on other hospitals nationwide in its bid to build the biggest chain of healthcare institutions in the country with a bed capacity of at least 3,000.

Aside from the 51-percent owned RMCI, MPIC’s healthcare portfolio also includes Makati Medical Center, Davao Doctors Hospital and Cardinal Santos Medical Center, giving the group a total capacity of over 1,300 beds.

RMCI was founded as an eight-bed clinic in 1954 and has since expanded with medical departments comprising obstetrics and gynecology, medicine, orthopedics, ENT, pediatrics, emergency medicine, pathology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, imaging sciences, anesthesia, surgery, and opthalmology.

The deal also included the purchase of RMCI’s wholly-owned unit Riverside College Inc., a nursing school with 2,800 students.