KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 27): IHH Healthcare Bhd, which will spend RM1.96 billion on the expansion of its hospital projects across four of its key markets in the next four years, said the group will focus on integrating its assets thereafter.

"We have just completed a very significant and transformative acquisition,” IHH managing director and chief executive officer Dr Tan See Leng told a media briefing today.

“We have been really aggressive at expanding our footprint in the past five or six years. For us, the focus now is on integrating the assets that we have acquired in the last 12 months, and ensuring a stable, well-integrated and assimilated platform," Tan said.

"We will be spending a lot more time in integrating the assets, but at the same time, if there are opportunistic acquisitions that come our way, we will not hesitate to look at them," he added.

Of the unincurred expansion capital expenditure of RM1.96 billion, RM458.6 million will be for its projects in Malaysia — Pantai Hospital Kuala Lumpur, Pantai Hospital Ayer Keroh, Pantai Hospital Klang, and a greenfield project, Gleneagles Medini — to be funded through its Malaysia operating cash flow and new bank facilities, if needed.

Meanwhile, RM933.8 million will be earmarked for the group’s Gleneagles Hospitals in Shanghai and Chengdu, China; RM145.4 million for Gleneagles Hong Kong; and RM354.1 million for its first hospital in Yangon, Myanmar.

The balance of RM65.4 million will be used for the expansion of the International Medical University, Malaysia’s leading   private medical and healthcare university.