Makati Med gets P300M capital boost from MPIC

Publicly listed Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) said Monday it was acquiring from its affiliate Medical Doctors Inc. (MDI)—owner and operator of the Makati Medical Center—Colinas Verdes Hospital Managers Corp. (CVHMC) for P300 million.

MPIC said the deal was covered by an agreement it had signed with MDI recently.

CVHMC is a wholly owned subsidiary of MDI that was established in 2008 to enter into a 20-year lease agreement with Philippine Realty Corp. (PRC) to operate Cardinal Santos Medical Center, a 237-bed tertiary hospital on Wilson Street, San Juan, Metro Manila. MDI also guaranteed certain obligations of CVHMC to PRC.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, MPIC said that under the terms of the agreement, which is subject to the approval of PRC, MPIC will acquire 100 percent of the shares of CVHMC from MDI for P300 million and assume all guaranteed obligations of MDI to PRC.

“This transaction is beneficial to all parties involved,” the company said in a statement. “It will generate a substantial amount of cash for MDI to enable it to continue funding its major upgrading programs—facilities renovation, purchase of state-of-the-art medical equipment, environmentally friendly energy savings initiatives—to modernize and further improve the Makati Medical Center.”

“It will also free MDI from the need to possibly fund Cardinal Santos Medical Center’s own expansion program,” MPIC Hospital Group president and CEO Augie Palisoc Jr. said. “It will make CVHMC a direct wholly-owned subsidiary of the MPIC Hospital Group.”

“As such, MPIC will be able to fully consolidate the financials of CVHMC,” Palisoc explained. “With this restructuring, we will be able to directly support both hospitals and pursue their respective improvement/expansion programs for the benefit of their patients, doctors and other stakeholders.”

The MPIC Hospital Group is now the largest private hospital operator in the Philippines consisting of five premier hospitals with a total of 1,600 beds.

Comprising the MPIC Hospital Group are Makati Medical Center, Cardinal Santos Medical Center, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Sta. Mesa Manila, Riverside Medical Center in Bacolod, and Davao Doctors Hospital in Mindanao.

Makati Medical Center is a 420-bed tertiary hospital in Makati City that was once considered the country’s premier medical facility before it was hobbled by financial troubles in the 1990s.

MPIC’s entry has allowed it to spend as much as P2 billion for capital expenditures to improve its facilities and services in recent years, including a new annex building launched in 2008.