KUALA LUMPUR: Hospital operator TMC Life Sciences Bhd has allocated RM142 million in capital expenditures (capex) this year.
Its outgoing group chief executive officer (GCEO) Roy Quek Hong Sheng said 70 per cent of the allocation would be for the upgrading of its Damansara facilities.
Another 20 per cent is for the completion of TMC Life’s new hospital in Johor and the remaining 10 per cent for the upgrading of existing facilities.
“As you know, we are now expanding our flagship hospital, Thomson Hospital Kota Damansara, where we are tripling its current capacity to 600 beds by 2020. Once completed, this will make it one of the largest private hospitals in the region,” Quek said after the company's annual general meeting here today.
“We have also started construction work on Thomson Iskandar Medical Hub in Johor, which includes the 500-bed Hospital Iskandariah,” he added.
The remaining 10 per cent of capex would be for the expansion of two of its fertility centres, the TMC Fertility Kota Damansara and TMC Fertility Puchong, which are on track to be completed by the year-end.
Quek, who will be relinquish his role tomorrow but retaining his dual roles as GCEO and executive director of Thomson Medical Group (TMG), the parent company of TMC Life.
TMG was looking to expand further in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Myanmar, China and Australia.
“For this venture, we have been talking to world class hospital operators that already have the expertise and stable operating management, so that we can contribute the value-added elements to their operations.
“Our vision is to grow our platform to include additional hospitals, and rehabilitation centers and we will focus less on greenfield projects and concentrate instead on mergers and acquisitions,” he said.
Quek said it was talking to both local and international players with the aim to acquire or merge by the end of its financial year ending August 31 2019.
TMC Life is currently the leader in fertility treatment in Malaysia. As of October 2018, it has help childess couples produced 5,388 babies via in vitro fertilisation (IVF). This is the largest number of IVF babies produced by any single practice in Malaysia.
Incoming GCEO and current group chief corporate officer Wan Nadiah Wan Mohd Abdullah Yaakob said the fertility business was contributing 20 per cent to the group's revenue.
“It is also helping us generate substantial medical tourism as we have seen patients coming in from Indonesia, Singapore, China, Europe and the Middle East traveling here to get treatment at our fertility facilities,” she said.
“Going forward, our fertility treatment will still be a substantial revenue generator, but we will also want to expand into other areas as well,” said Nadiah, while adding that expanding to Borneo was also on the cards.
TMC Life saw an increase of 13 per cent in both its net profit (RM7.1 million) and revenue (RM47.2 million) for the first quarter ended November 30 2018.