Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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PETALING JAYA (Oct 21): Hospital operator TMC Life Sciences Bhd may collaborate with Singapore-based sister entity Thomson Medical Pte Ltd to grow the Malaysian group's operations.

TMC Life chief executive officer Roy Quek Hong Sheng said the group might explore synergies with Thomson. Singapore billionaire Peter Lim Eng Hock is a common major shareholder in TMC Life and Thomson Medical.

Quek did not elaborate, only indicating "this is one of the options the healthcare group (TMC Life) can consider for it to grow even bigger".

He was speaking to pressmen after TMC Life's annual general meeting today.

A synergy with Thomson Medical is deemed crucial to expand TMC Life's regional reach as the latter eyes medical tourism as an important business segment.

Quek said TMC Life is targeting a 25% revenue contribution from medical tourism within five years. He declined to quantify the existing contribution, only indicating it was insignificant.

He said Malaysia attracted some 800,000 medical tourists into the country a year, and the number was expected to grow.

To cater to rising demand for medical tourism, he said TMC Life is expanding its Tropicana Medical Centre in Kota Damansara, Selangor. TMC Life is also developing a new hospital in Johor Baru known as the Iskandariah Hospital.

"Following the expansion, the total beds at Tropicana Medical Centre will rise to 600 from 200 currently. Iskandariah Hospital will provide a total of 500 beds, which mainly cater for domestic and regional patients, particularly, from Singapore and Indonesia.

"As a healthcare service provider, we must have first established our branding and provide trusted and reliable services to attract more medical tourists here," Quek said.

TMC Life shares rose 0.5 sen or 0.9% at 12.30pm to settle at 56.5 sen for a market capitalisation of RM979.1 million. Lim owns 70.5% of TMC Life.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company's profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)

 

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