HEALTH MANAGEMENT INT'L: Ready to officially open StarMed Specialist Centre

The new private one-stop ambulatory care centre that Health Management International acquired a 62.5% stake in will officially start operations soon. StarMed Specialist Centre, in which HMI bought its stake in May 2018, has completed renovations and received its operating licenses from the Singapore Ministry of Health. The Day Surgery Centre at StarMed is a one-stop centre for diagnostic and surgical procedures that do not require admission into a hospital. Photo: Company Co-located with Park Hotel Farrer Park above Farrer Park MRT station, StarMed is the first private "one-stop ambulatory care centre" in Singapore. It will initially focus on cardio-vascular, digestive, minimally invasive surgeries and diagnostic services. Stock price  61 c 52-week range 56 - 73c Market cap S$511 m PE (ttm) 24 x Dividend yield (ttm) 0.54% 1-year return - 3% Shares outstanding 837 m Source: Bloomberg HMI said it expects to incur start-up losses from StarMed's operations for 2 to 3 years. CGS-CIMB analyst Ngoh Yi Sin forecasts RM3m-7m EBITDA loss per annum in its first three years of operations HMI has just reported a 194% jump y-o-y in group net profit to RM60.6 million for FY2018 (ended June), HMI Share price:  61 c Target:  79 c Source: CGS-CIMB (This large profit increase was mainly due to the one-off impact of the consolidation exercise completed on 27 March 2017 , whereby 100% of net income is now attributable to HMI shareholders.)

StarMed is all about ambulatory care (ie patients don't stay overnight), with medical fees that are expected to be somewhere between those charged by private hospitals and government restructured hospitals. 

StarMed is targeting rising demand for day surgeries and diagnostic imaging in Singapore, with its "one-stop" proposition so patients who need various services will find them all under one roof.

StarMed occupies four floors, totalling 16,000 sq ft, in one of the last commercial buildings approved in Singapore to house such a large medical centre.

For its purchase of a stake in StarMed, HMI paid S$6.9 million cash and injected a S$1.9 million shareholder's loan while assuming obligations of up to S$31.2 million worth of loans, which is in proportion to its shareholding.

HMI CEO Chin Wei Jia and CFO Chin Wei Yao. NextInsight file photo.The remaining 37.5% stake is held by a group of doctors.

HMI also owns two tertiary hospitals (Mahkota Medical Centre in Malacca and Regency Specialist Hospital in Johor), and a healthcare training centre in Singapore and has a network of representative offices in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.