KUALA LUMPUR (June 14): Sunway Bhd said it plans to list its healthcare unit within the next five years, as the group further builds and strengthens its medical brand.

Sunway founder and chairman Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah said the group will be pushing to expand its healthcare business, adding a listing of the divisions is also on the cards within the next five years.

“It has to be [listed] eventually. We also need funds and a listing will be a way to marshal funds from the market. We also want to expand overseas as well, but we need a strong brand first," he told reporters after the group's annual general meeting today.

“We won an award that puts us on par with Mount Elizabeth Hospitals in Singapore, which has helped with our branding,” he said, referring to the 2017 GHT-Bernstein Orthopaedics Service Provider of the Year award.

“It will take a couple of years, although we could list now if we wanted to, because we have the track record. But it might not give us the value that we want so we’d rather wait for a few years,” added Cheah.

Cheah sees healthcare as a very important sector to go into, amid greater interest from patients overseas, attracted by lower costs in Malaysia in the wake of the weakened ringgit.

“We are eyeing the medical tourism market which is booming. We are getting lots of interest, including from Japan and China,” Cheah noted.

Currently, the group’s healthcare division comprises Sunway Medical Centre which will see an expansion to 1,000 beds in the next two and a half years.

Sunway Medical Centre is expected to contribute about RM50 million to the group's profit for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2017 (FY17), compared with RM37 million in FY16.

Cheah said the group plans to add five more hospitals to its portfolio, estimated to cost approximately RM1 billion over five years. The group is also looking to set up two hospitals in Penang, as well as one in Perak, one in Johor and one in Damansara.

Meanwhile, the new hospital at Sunway Velocity in Cheras is already under construction. The hospital is expected to be completed in 2019, with an initial bed count of 240, while 100 more to be added later.

Sunway shares closed 12 sen or 3.32% higher at RM3.73 today, with 5.18 million shares done, bringing its market capitalisation to RM7.6 billion.