AC health may seal stake sale to foreign investor in May

MANILA, Philippines — AC Health, the health care arm of the Ayala Group, is looking to seal by next month the sale of a minority stake in the company to a strategic foreign partner.

The move will support the company’s aggressive expansion program that will entail as much as P8 billion in investments over the next three years.

AC Health president and CEO Paolo Borromeo told The STAR the company will make a decision by May on the sale of the company’s 15 to 20 percent stake to a strategic investor.

Borromeo said negotiations are still ongoing for the value of the sale.

He said AC Health is hoping to make a decision if it will proceed with the deal “in the next month or so,” noting that they do not want to drag out the process further since it has been going on for a year now.

“But more importantly is strategically, you’ll bring in the right partners that can bring in the expertise,” he said.

AC Health, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, announced on Friday plans to expand aggressively its network in the next three years and become a $2-billion health care company by 2035.

To achieve its 2035 ambition, AC Health intends to deepen and expand its presence in key cities through organic and inorganic expansion of its hospital and clinic network.

The company will also expand its retail pharma presence nationwide through a multi-brand retail approach.

“Our long-term ambition is clear – to serve one in every five Filipinos by 2030. In fact, in the next three years alone, we aim to expand our pharmacies from 880 to 1,150 retail drugstores, our clinics from 236 to over 300 clinics and our hospitals from six to 10 in major cities,” Borromeo said.

“But to us, this isn’t just about numbers. It’s about building a health care system that meets people where they are. It’s about providing care that’s consistent, that’s connected and that’s compassionate. And as we celebrate 10 years, we’re already setting our sights on the next decade,” he said.

For its organic expansion, Borromeo said the company seeks to invest between P1 billion and P2 billion a year, or P6 billion to P8 billion in the next three years.

“That excludes mergers and acquisitions. We can fund that internally,” he said.

Established in 2015 as a wholly owned Ayala subsidiary, AC Health aims to provide Filipinos accessible, affordable and quality health care.

From its first investment in Generika Drugstore in 2015, AC Health has grown into a robust and integrated network that now includes 236 corporate and multispecialty clinics, six hospitals under Healthway Medical Network, 880 pharmacies between Generika Drugstore and St. Joseph Drug and 1,178 certificates of product registration under I.E. Medica and MedEthix.