Will B.R. Shetty Succeed?

B.R. Shetty plans to pump in billions of dollars as part of his plan to open 20,000 hospital beds in India over the next 10 years. Given the churn in the healthcare sector, will he succeed?

- Anshul Dhamija

When Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty (B.R.Shetty) set out to build a healthcare business in Abu Dhabi in the 1970s, he used to apply hair oil on his head before going to bed to get a good night’s sleep. Building a business is not easy, and it’s even tougher if you’re away from home as was the case with Shetty, who hails from Udupi in Karnataka. “You will face financial problems, staff problems, and many other problems. And at that time I didn’t get sleep,” says Shetty, the billionaire founder and chairman of NMC Healthcare, which was started in 1974 and is now the largest private healthcare provider in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.).

The age-old tradition of applying hair oil at night to calm one’s mind worked for Shetty. A little over three decades after he began, the former pharma salesman and part-time actor has built multiple businesses across diverse industries from hospitals to financial services stretching all the way from the Gulf region to India, Nepal, and Afghanistan. Healthcare is one of the biggest businesses in his portfolio: NMC Healthcare has over 200 facilities across 17 countries and had a market cap of over $11 billion last August, which he says was built on his “sweat and goodwill”. “Now I sleep very well, so I don’t apply hair oil at night,” laughs the 77-year-old Shetty, who has an Indian passport but has been living in the U.A.E. for over three decades.

But he might have to start applying some oil again soon. It’s been a rough year for NMC Healthcare on the stock market. The company’s market cap has almost halved with shares of NMC Healthcare, which trades on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), falling over 40% over the last year.