Temasek backed Cloudnine leads race to acquire ART Fertility for $400 mn
Mumbai: Temasek-backed Cloudnine Hospitals is leading the race to acquire Art Fertility, a UAE-based IVF treatment chain, signalling a growing interest among financial and strategic investors for single-specialty healthcare companies.
The deal, valuing Art Fertility at $400 million, has also seen interest from IVI, a European strategic investor, four people with knowledge of the development said on the condition of anonymity.
'The binding bids have come in. There are two final bidders. Cloudnine is likely the frontrunner," the first person cited above said. The deal will give existing investor Gulf Capital an exit.
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'Temasek is expected to double down on its investment in Cloudnine to help the company fund the acquisition," the people cited above said. 'The acquisition involves ART Fertility's entire business, comprising Middle Eastern and Indian divisions."
Investment bank Moelis & Co. is running the mandate for the transaction.
While spokespersons for Temasek and Moelis declined to comment, queries emailed to Cloudnine, ART Fertility and Gulf Capital did not elicit any response.
Temasek's new capital infusion comes less than a year after the Singapore government's investment arm bought nearly a 20% stake in Bengaluru-based Cloudnine for around $125 million. The deal, which valued the specialist mother and baby care hospital at around $600 million, gave early-stage venture capital firm Peak XV an exit from the company after 11 years.
Founded in 2006 by Dr. R Kishore Kumar, Rohit M.A., M. Ramachandra and Vidya Kumar, Cloudnine is a chain of super-specialty hospitals catering to fertility, maternity care, gynaecology, paediatrics, neonatology, baby care and stem cell banking. Currently, it has 34 centres across Indian cities, including Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Gurgaon, Ludhiana and Chandigarh. Twelve of the centres are in Bengaluru.
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ART Fertility was established as an extension to IVI RMA Global, a company focused on assisted reproduction technology (ART), in 2015 under the brand name IVI Middle East. About five years later, Gulf Capital bought IVI RMA's stake and rebranded the company to ART Fertility.
For Cloudnine, the acquisition comes at a time when it's realigning its cap table ahead of a public listing that is expected later this year. This would be the hospital chain's second attempt at an initial public offering (IPO). In 2022, it had filed draft papers for a ₹1,200 crore IPO.
Cloudnine will leverage ART Fertility's presence in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Dubai, alongside 11 clinics across India in cities including Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. Its clinics have seen a swift expansion to become one of the leading players in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, with plans to extend services further across the globe, Gulf Capital said in a statement in November 2023.
Kids Clinic India Ltd, which operates Cloudnine, reported a consolidated revenue of $145.3 million in FY24 as compared with $119.8 million a year earlier. It narrowed its losses to $3.4 million from a loss of $5.3 million in FY23, according to data from Tracxn.
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ICRA noted last year that Kids Clinic will benefit from healthy revenue growth on a steady ramp-up at the existing centres and improving revenue share from new centres. The diversification of its presence across various parts of northern, western and southern India, coupled with plans to set up more units in metros and tier I cities, will also add to its growth.
With continuous expansion in recent years resulting in a sizable loss from new centres, its return on capital employed (ROCE) has been low in FY23 and FY24, ICRA said in the note. However, a robust scale of operations, gradual improvement in profit margins of new centres and stable margins of existing areas will support the improvement in ROCE over the medium term, the credit rating firm said.
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