Medfort Hospitals, a healthcare provider specialising in eye care and diabetes treatment, has announced its merger with Hyderabad-based eye care chain Maxivision Eye Hospitals. The merger will result into a 12-facility eye hospital network, with presence in cities like Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Chennai, Vizag and Vijayawada.
Post-merger, all eye-care initiatives of the Medfort group will be rebranded as Maxivision Eyecare and Maxivision Lasik Suites.
Medfort hopes to help expand Maxivision’s network to 50 hospitals across 20 cities within the next 12 months, he added.
“Medfort shares the same mission as that of Maxivision. We will continue to be the technology, research and clinical excellence leader in eye care services,” said Kasu Prasad Reddy, chairman and managing director of Maxivision.
Current statistics reveal that around 10 per cent of the Indian population suffers from some form of visual impairment, which means more than 12 crore Indians need specialised treatment.
In November last year, Medfort had attracted an investment of Rs 60 crore from TVS Capital Funds and ePlanet Ventures. While TVS Capital and Shriram Group had invested nearly Rs 50 crore for a significant minority stake, the remaining fund came from ePlanet Ventures.
Healthcare delivery has been considered a growth area as the space has been mostly occupied by small hospitals, barring one or two large hospital chains like Apollo Hospitals, Max Healthcare and Fortis Healthcare. Private equity firms have been looking at this space since 2005 when Warburg Pincus invested in Max Healthcare. In the last five years, there had been around 30 deals in healthcare delivery alone and around $650 million (disclosed value) have been invested by PE firms in this space.
