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April 30, 2001
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Money > Business Headlines > Report April 30, 2001 |
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Apollo Health plans to raise Rs 500 mn via venture fundingBhupesh Bhandari Apollo Health Street, an Apollo Hospitals Group company which runs the portal apollolife.com, is looking at raising Rs 400-500 million by placing five per cent of its equity with some venture capital funds. "We are in talks with some funds to offload five per cent shares at the rate of Rs 500 per share," Apollo Hospitals Group chairman Prathap C Reddy said. Reddy is also planning to place 10 per cent of the equity of emedvarsity.com, a dotcom company promoted jointly by Apollo Health Street and NIIT, with some private investors. "We want a price of Rs 150 per share," Reddy added. NIIT holds a 15 per cent stake in the company. As per Reddy, apollolife.com is almost 80 per cent ready and the current placement will take care of its funding requirements for the time being. Earlier, Reddy said, the Unit Trust of India had picked up a two per cent stake in the company at Rs 250 a share. Reddy plans to make apollolife.com the leading health portal of the world in two years' time. "We have a unique advantage that nobody else has," Reddy said adding, "Our doctors are prepared to give from four hours to fourteen hours every week to the portal." At that time, Reddy said, that the group might go in for an issue of American depository receipts totalling $200-300 million. The portal apollolife.com is aimed at the common man as well as corporate and will act as a gateway for medical insurance products. It will offer people the various insurance products available, which can even be customised. "We will also act as a third party assurance. In this regard, we have a network of 980 hospitals all over the country," Reddy added. The portal emedvarsity.com is a portal aimed at medical education. While NIIT has provided the technical know-how for the website, the content has been developed by the Apollo Hospitals Group. "In the last nine months, we have been able to develop over 3,000 hours of content," Reddy said. Apart from the above, the group has no other fund raising initiative lined up. "We are raising the hospitals capacity from 4,000 beds to 8,000 beds. And the funding for it is all tied up. We have no intention for any further fund raising," Reddy added. Powered by YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO READ:
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