Just What The Doctor Ordered

Losing the bidding war for Fortis was a setback for Ranjan Pai and his Manipal group, but that hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm. His plan to expand the group’s base and business portfolio is still on.

- Debojyoti Ghosh

HE MIGHT BE A DOCTOR BY TRAINING, but he’s better known as a savvy investor and successful entrepreneur. Defying conventional wisdom that says doctors can’t be good businessmen, Bengaluru-based billionaire entrepreneur Ranjan Pai heads a virtual health care empire in India with 10 hospitals under its belt and a valuation of around $1 billion. So, many in the business thought the 45-year-old chairman of Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG) was a shoo-in for Fortis Healthcare when India’s second largest hospital chain was put on the block. And for one brief moment, he even seemed to have clinched the deal. But, as it turned out, after several twists and turns in a months-long bidding war for control of Gurugram-based Fortis, Pai eventually lost the race to Malaysia-based IHH Healthcare.

Acquiring Fortis would have been a real feather in Pai’s cap. It would have catapulted Manipal Hospitals into the position of the biggest player in the health care industry in India, ahead of Apollo Hospitals, the Chennai-based hospital chain set up by Dr Prathap C. Reddy in 1983. It’s hardly surprising then that Pai was disappointed but he didn’t stop to wallow in self-pity. Word on the street is that he’s looking at setting up shop in the eastern and northern parts of the country where he barely has a presence. “We liked Fortis because it was a large well-built asset... Post our Fortis experiment, we are now trying to figure out new opportunities. There are many health care chains that can get acquired,” Pai tells Fortune India. “We are looking at companies similar to our size and smaller [400-800 beds multi-speciality hospitals.] It has to be the right fit for us. We can look at one or two acquisitions, and then look at an IPO in the next two years for Manipal Health Enterprises.”