KUALA LUMPUR (May 28): In an effort to reduce its exposure to the Turkish lira volatility, IHH Healthcare Bhd is looking to decrease its non-lira debts by up to US$250 million from this year onwards.

"We are looking to refinance another [and up to] US$250 million into lira. We will swap some of that into lira," its group chief financial officer Low Soon Teck told reporters at a press conference after the group's annual general meeting here, noting that the refinancing will be done starting this year.

He added that the conversion of the non-lira debt to the local currency will be done in "stages".

This would mean that IHH is anticipating its foreign currency-denominated debt to reduce further from the current US$420 million.

Notably, last year's earnings were largely impacted by finance costs as a result of non-lira loan borrowings for its Turkish operations.

For the full year ended Dec 31, 2018 (FY18), the group's net profit fell 35% year-on-year to RM627.69 million from RM969.95 million, despite a 3% increase in revenue to RM11.52 billion from RM11.14 billion, due to higher net forex losses for Acibadem Holdings' non-Turkish lira loans.

To date, its foreign currency-denominated debt stood at US$420 million, versus US$670 million in Dec 31, 2018.

Low noted that IHH had completed a capitalisation exercise of US$250 million of non-lira debt in April this year to manage foreign exchange exposure at Acibadem.

"The group is looking to conserving the foreign currency cash that is received from foreign patients to accumulate the cash to pay down further the debt, in the course of the year," Low added.