Healthcare Budget 2018: Quick glance






/iMoney 27-10-2017

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Rowsley announced plan to purchase into TMC



"We are already working with Rowsley for the healthcare city project in Johor. If Rowsley becomes our new shareholder, we could pool our resources and grow under one roof,” said Quek.

In July, Rowsley had announced a plan to buy a 70% stake in TMC from Singapore billionaire Peter Lim, who is also the controlling shareholder of Singapore-listed Rowsley. The proposed acquisition’s price tag is around S$1.9bil (RM6bil).

The proposed acquisition will be an all-share deal for Lim’s private vehicle, Sasteria Pte Ltd. Sasteria not only owns the 70% stake in TMC, but is also the owner of Thomson Medical Pte Ltd.

Quek explained that TMC’s proposed Iskandariah Hospital project in Johor was part of the RM5bil Rowsley’s Vantage Bay Healthcare City project.

“The hospital portion belongs to TMC, in which we had planned to build a 500-bed hospital. The remaining area of the healthcare city is owned by Rowsley,” he said.

Quek said for the Iskandariah Hospital, TMC is hoping to secure the final approval from regulators by the first quarter of next year. The hospital is expected to cost RM1.2bil.

He pointed out that the company’s “immediate priority” was to expand its flagship hospital, Tropicana Medical Centre in Kota Damansara. Under the expansion plan, the hospital will add 400 more beds from its current 205 beds. The expansion is expected to cost about RM300mil, which the company aims to finance via internal funds and bank borrowings.

"We are targeting to complete the expansion by end-2020. We hope to start the construction this year,” Quek said.

“Overall, TMC is expected to expand its capacity to 1,100 beds from 205 beds in the next five years,” Quek said.

TMC said its net profit surged 90% to RM11.1mil in the fourth quarter ended Aug 31 from RM5.9mil a year earlier.

Revenue in the quarter was up by 16% to RM39.3mil from RM33.8mil previously.

For financial year 2017 (FY17), TMC posted a 46% jump in net profit to RM26mil from RM17.9mil last year, contributed by a higher patient load and additional bed capacity.

TMC installed more than 40 beds in FY17.

Revenue for the period increased 15% to RM151.7mil from RM131.4mil previously.

The company also announced a higher dividend payout of 0.17 sen a share from 0.15 sen a year ago.

/theSTAR 27-10-2017


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TMC Expansion Plan with 5-fold Growth in Beds



TMC (TMC Life Sciences Bhd) is at a high growth stage with plans for capacity expansion to add more beds and medical suites, said group CEO Roy Quek.

He said the company, whichy operates a 200-bed hospital, was aiming for a five-fold growth in the number of beds to 1,100 beds, expected to be ready in stages after 2020.

“The new extension block to the existing Tropicana Medical Centre hospital in Kota Damansara, Petaling Jaya, which is slated to be ready by end-2020, will have 400 beds.

“In Johor Baru, assuming we get the approval from the authority, the Iskandariah Hospital will have 500 beds upon completion after a tentatively five-year construction period,” he told a media briefing in conjunction with the announcement of TMC’s results for financial year ended Aug 31, 2017 on Thursday.

For FY17, the company’s pre-tax profit rose to RM27.14mil from RM21.59mil in FY16, while revenue increased 15% to RM151.70mil in FY17 from RM131.40mil previously..

Quek said the group’s brownfield expansion project costing RM300mil, occupying one-third of the company’s existing six hectares (ha) land in Kota  Damansara, had received the building plan approval from the local council and was expected to commence construction by end-2017.

“It is crucial for the group to continue its growth trajectory as the additional capacity will be able to support physical constraint,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Iskandariah Hospital, which is planned to be developed under the proposed Vantage Bay Healthcare City on land belonging to TMC’s largest shareholder, Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim via his Singapore-listed real estate firm Rowsley Ltd, will cost RM1.2bil.

Besides the Iskandariah Hospital, the proposed RM5bil medical hub, Vantage Bay Healthcare City, sprawled over 11ha in Johor Baru will also comprise a health sciences education platform and wellness hub.

“We are hoping to secure the approval from the Health Ministry for the project in Johor by the first quarter of next year,” said Quek.

He added the group is currently taking measures to maintain its growth trajectory pace such as ramping up marketing efforts to boost medical tourism.

TMC has six fertility treatment centres in Peninsular Malaysia and is planning to open a new branch in Sabah and Sarawak.

/theSTAR 26-10-2017

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Malaysia: Growth of Private Health and Social Sector



Malaysia’s private healthcare and social work services sector has been growing by leaps and bounds, the Department of Statistics 2016 Economic Census revealed.
The country has some 14,930 private establishments providing general and specialised medical services, dental services, hospital services, dialysis centres, child day-care, residential care and maternity homes among others, in 2015.
These establishments contributed RM16.8bil to Malaysia’s economy in 2015, compared to RM10.4bil from 9,152 such establishments in 2010.
Some 121,088 people were employed in this sector in 2015, out of which 88.5% are full-time employees, 2.2% are paid part-time employees while the remaining 9.3% are owners or unpaid family workers.
Female workers outnumbered male wor­kers in all qualifications, except at the post-graduate level where more men (5,000) were employed than women (2,874). 
Most health and social workers possessed at least an SPM or SPM (V) certificate (26.5%), diploma qualification (28.7%) or advanced diploma or Bachelor’s degree (23.8%). Only 2.6% or 3,222 of the workers had below SPM or SPM (V) qualification.
Overall the workers took home RM3.68bil in salaries and wages in 2015, compared to RM2.1bil in 2010.
Employees in private hospital services topped the salary list at RM1.84bil in 2015, followed by employees in general medical services at RM737mil and specialised medical services at RM300.6mil.
The average monthly salary in the private health and social work services sector in 2015 was RM2,795.
Employees serving in specialised medical services recorded the highest average monthly salary at RM3,352, followed by hospital services at RM3,317 and medical laboratories at RM3,065.
Selangor has the highest number of esta­blishments providing health and social work services at 3,883, followed by Kuala Lumpur at 2,299 and Johor at 1,713 in 2015.
Women-owned establishments in this sector also increased from 3,122 in 2010 to 4,699 in 2015.
The highest increase in the number of women-owned outfits between 2010 and 2015 was recorded in child day-care activities (784), other human health services (172) and residential care activities (138).
theSTAR 19-10-2017

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Hovid Bhd: Privatisation



Major shareholder David Ho Sue San, working with private equity (PE) firm TAEL Two Partners Ltd, have made a general offer for Hovid shares at 38 sen apiece in a bid to take the company private.

The exercise sees a special vehicle called Fajar Astoria Sdn Bhd, set up by TAEL to undertake the offer with Ho. TAEL is part of the TAEL Partners group, established in 2007 as a South East Asian-centric PE firm.

The takeover offer will also involve Ho and Fajar Astoria buying up the group’s outstanding five-year warrants at 20 sen per warrant.

Based on Hovid’s announcement on Monday, Ho, who is also the chairman and managing director, holds a 33.72% stake or 276.80 million shares and 43.57% or 140.39 million warrants in Hovid.

The offerors are proposing to buy 181.84 million units of the outstanding warrants, which represents about 56.43% of the total warrants.The warrants expire on June 5, 2018 and have an exercise price of RM0.18 per warrant.

Going back to the buyout offer, the condition of 90% acceptances means this: Ho will need acceptances of 90% of the 66.28% of Hovid shares he does not own. This translates into a total of 59% holding of the company (which works to around 484 million Hovid shares) accepting Ho’s offer.

Hence the takeover offer will fail, if Ho does not achieve this level of acceptances. However, it is interesting to note that the offerors have also stated that they reserve the right to review the level of acceptance to less than the 90% level. It will be interesting to see if they lower the condition at some point during the life of the offer.

Ho, a pharmacy graduate, is also the founder of Hovid. He took over his father’s herbal tea business. The business flourished until he bought over a building in Ipoh and named it Ho Yan Hor Medical Hall. This was later renamed as Ho Yan Hor Sdn Bhd and today it is known as Hovid Bhd.

Aside from generic drugs and dietary supplements under its own Hovid brandname, the company also does contract manufacturing for other drugmakers. About 95% of its revenue is said to be derived from the Hovid brand name.

He later founded another company called Carotech Bhd, which went public on Bursa Malaysia’s Mesdaq market, now known as ACE Market, in 2005.

The Ipoh-based Carotech specialised in extracting tocotrienol (vitamin E) from crude palm oil and became well-known globally, conquering about 80% of global palm vitamen E market share. But Carotech’s fortunes dwindled and was delisted on May 11, 2012 for failing to submit its regularisation plan to Bursa Securities for approval within the stipulated time.

A series of events took place after this where Ho and other directors at Carotech and Hovid were publicly reprimanded by the authorities for breaching listing requirements with regard to both companies’ financial results.

So why does Ho want to privatise Hovid? The offerors did not indicate the rationale for the privatisation.

Nevertheless, it is pertinent to note that Hovid had slipped into the red in financial year ended June 30, 2017 (FY17).

The company posted a net loss of RM1.53mil from net profit of RM17.9mil, against a 10% drop in revenue at RM169.94mil from RM189.03mil. It has RM15.9mil in cash, with debt of RM65.6mil as at June 30, 2017.

The earnings, according to Hovid, was dragged by the disruption in manufacturing activities arising from the revocation of its manufacturing licences of two plants. This subsequently affected its sales volume and led to higher operating costs from improvements on quality systems and production processes.

Hovid’s manufacturing licences of two plants were revoked after an audit by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) revealed that its Pharmaceutical Quality System were not in compliance with the latest Good Manufacturing Practice. The revocation of licence was linked to Hovid recalling its hypertension pills, Ternolol 50mg on Jan 5, which triggered the audit by the NPRA.

Hovid’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) margin also suffered for the fourth quarter FY17, shrinking to a mere 4.2%, from fourth quarter of FY16’s 13.5%.

The company managed to obtain the license for its Chemor plant in May, but the other plant requires some physical changes, according to reports.

At the current share price of 36 sen, just two sen short of the offer price, Hovid is trading at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 21.18 times.

Hovid’s 52-week high of 38 sen was about a year ago on Oct 14, 2016, while its 52-week low was on Jan 10, 2017 at 24 sen. However, its highest was last seen on April 21, 2015 at 53.7 sen. The stock has risen 16.13% from Oct 3rd’s 31 sen, before Hovid’s privatisation announcement.

In terms of assets, Hovid has about 16 properties and land worth some RM33mil, with the bulk last valued in June 2016. Of these, the ones valued the most include its Chemor plant and research and development centre worth RM27.15mil, a RM13.22mil pharmaceutical factory and office building in Ipoh and seven parcels of vacant land also in Ipoh worth RM11.5mil.

A month ago, CIMB Research maintained its “hold” rating on the stock, with a higher sum-of-parts based target price of 34 sen. The house cut its FY18-19 estimates by 16.3%-27.6% to account for lower production volume and further delays in the Chemor plant extension. The research house said Hovid was facing labour shortages that resulted in its less than optimal production volume.


theSTAR/14-10-2017

Disclaimer: Views or opinions expressed are solely those of the Author and should be used with discretion. The Author shall not be held liable for any acts or omissions arising from the use of the information. The user will be personally liable for any damages or other liability arising hereof.

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