Ajay Piramal plans healthcare fund

MUMBAI: Fifteen months after launching IndiaReit, a real estate fund which has raised Rs 1,350 crore, pharma tycoon Ajay Piramal is at it again. This time round, he is doing something closer to his heart. Piramal is in the midst of launching a fund dedicated to healthcare.
Keen to expand his private equity business, Piramal is also looking at an infrastructure fund and another one to buy distressed assets.A general, all-purpose fund is also on the cards. Ajay Piramal, chairman, Piramal Enterprises said: "We are looking at many funds. These are still early days and we have not frozen on any particular segment as yet. We are definitely keen to expand our offering in the private equity space.''
The corpus of the healthcare fund could not be ascertained, though sources said the group has approached several institutional investors and banks to invest in the new fund. "The idea is to sense the interest of investors in garnering maximum funds,'' sources said.
They added that this particular fund would be an offshore one, as compared to the IndiaReit fund which comprises of both domestic and an offshore fund. Piramal's financial services business model encapsulates similar ones by Anil Ambani's ADAG group, the Tatas and Kishore Biyani's Future Capital.
Sources added that "healthy corpus thus formed can maximise returns for investors by co-investing with reputable medical institutions or organisations, based on clearly identified value propositions.''
Piramal's competitor in the pharma space, Ranbaxy's promoters - Malvinder Singh - has already got a toehold in the private equity space with its launch of the $150 million ER Capital India Fund, which is investing in healthcare, infrastructure and financial services. The demand for healthcare services in India has ballooned from $4.8 billion in 1991 to $22.8 billion in 2001-02, indicating a compounded annual growth rate of 16%. The figure is expected to touch $47 billion by 2012.