Health and wellness product and service firm VLCC Health Care Ltd has entered into a joint venture with Sameer Group, a Kenya-based business house. VLCC has picked majority stake in the 70:30 JV which will be into wellness business.
The news of VLCC entering African market through a JV was first reported by The Economic Times.
The company will have its first wellness centre in Kenya up and running by January 2014, a company spokesperson told VCCircle. This will also be the company’s first unit outside Asia.
The firm will be concentrating on expanding in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania in the first two years. The JV christened VLCC East Africa will be investing Rs 100 crore in the African market by 2015. It will be setting up slimming and wellness centres under the VLCC brand.
Led by Naushad Merali, the $2 billion Sameer Group has business interests across agriculture, energy and power, finance and telecommunications. It also has a joint venture with Bharti Airtel to provide mobile phone services in Kenya.
A few weeks ago VLCC acquired a majority stake in Singapore-based Global Vantage Innovative Group (GVig), which owns and operates three companies that manufacture and retail a complete range of beauty and wellness products and solutions.
This was VLCC’s second overseas acquisition in less than a year and is in line with its strategy to expand its presence in the wellness domain in overseas markets. In November 2012, VLCC bought a majority stake in Wyann International, a slimming and beauty services provider in Malaysia.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
