DM Healthcare to hire 11,000 staff for expansion

Indian medical company DM Healthcare is to hire 11,000 new employees in the next three years under plans to more than double its presence in the Gulf and India, the company’s CEO has said.

The privately held firm, which is based in Dubai, will add more than 180 medical units to its existing portfolio between now and the end of 2014, at a total cost of AED2bn, Azad Moopen said.

“The plan is to have 300 units across the Gulf countries... The total number of staff required [for this] will be around 5-6000 people across the hospitals, clinics and pharmacies,” he told Arabian Business.

“In India we should have around 5000 people joining as well. We have now five hospitals in India but we are planning another 10.”

He added that the firm was also mulling an IPO in the near future.

“We would like to have the IPO done in two to three years time. Maybe within the UAE or maybe in India where we have large operations.”

This had little to do with the firm’s expansion plans, he said, for which funding had already been secured.

However, investments could be used to fund growth in the future.

DM Healthcare was established by Dr Azad Moopen in Dubai 25 years ago, and is now one of the largest providers of private healthcare in the region.

Among its shareholders are private equity firms India Value Fund and Olympus Capital Investments, both of which hold a minority stake in the firm. Olympus Capital Investments said last month it had invested about $100m in the company.

The healthcare provider currently has five hospitals in the Gulf, including two in Dubai, two in Oman and one property in Saudi Arabia under the brand names ‘Aster’ and ‘Medcare’. It also has approximately 43 clinics and 89 pharmacies across the UAE, Oman and Qatar.

Moopen said he is keen on expanding in the region in a bid to tap into the growing demands for healthcare.

In the GCC, three facilities located in the UAE are already under construction, with another four due to be launched in the near future.

“We are now looking at [hospitals for] Qatar, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and also Damman in Saudi Arabia,” he said.

“We will be completing our expansion plan by the end of 2014, in three years time. The hospitals should start functioning by then.”

In India the company has started building a 550-bed hospital in Kochi called Aster-MedCity, and a medical college hospital with 750 beds in Kerala. Moopen said there will be smaller hospitals developed in other places, ranging from 100 to 200 beds.