Apollo Hospitals which pioneered the concept of private hospitals in India along with Manipal healthcare [unlisted] is unable to expand beyond Tier-I cities and is facing saturation in its growth momentum. Apollo’ s revenue growth in the past 10 years has been steady with sales CAGR of 32% over FY2000-FY2007, and its number of beds has increased to around 8000 from 1500.
Apollo, which contains mostly steady state mature hospitals, has limited upside in terms of growth from existing units. As such, we think the newer hospitals should dilute EBITDA margins in the near term, and hence its expansion plans could impede returns. (more…)