AHEL (Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd) has planned to restructure its business exercise by divesting its pharmacy business by forming it as a separate entity and naming it as APL (Apollo Pharmacies Ltd). The newly formed company will turn out to be a completely owned subsidiary of AMPL (Apollo Medicals Pvt Ltd). Apollo management has mentioned that the new entity is just front-end division of the pharmacy business, which is valued at nearly Rs.5.27Bn.
New investors have taken up on nearly 75% stake for approximately 1.06Bn in Apollo Medicals Pvt Ltd, while parent company, the Apollo Hospitals has been planning to pull up nearly 25% stake in AMPL. The new investors are inclusive of Enam Securities, Jhelum Investment Fund, DSP BlackRock’s chairman and investment banker Hemendra Kothari and these investors will be owning the remaining 75%.
Proposed Reorganization to Beef up Pharmacy Retail Business
Apollo has been taking immense efforts in unlocking the potential of its pharmacy business by sharply focusing on retail sector as well. The company further is planning to enter into e-commerce zone that is basically its omni-network strategy for providing consumers with an option for picking up on physical or online stores. In the forthcoming years, according to Shobana Kamineni, AHEL’s executive vice-chairperson, the company will be looking for new or strategic equity investors, while IPO remains a choice to be explored.
The company had clearly stated that the proposed reorganization will not be holding back any material impact on AHEL’s financials as backend business that is related with the pharmacy business inhibits nearly 85% of business economics, which will be help by AHEL in future as well. The propose move will be highly beneficial for Apollo as it will comply with prescribed FDI (foreign direct investment) limits, which in turn helps in further expanding pharmacy retail business. Apollo is expecting the new organization to be operative by April 2019. Apollo had mentioned that this spin-off will enable the company in maximizing stakeholder value as well as set platform for the ‘value discovery’ pharmacy retail business.
Pharmacy Division Sales Growth: Consolidated Information
The pharmacy business consisted of nearly 38% of Apollo’s Rs.8, 243.5Cr revenues in the FY18. Pharmacy business has increased by 17% on Y-o-Y basis with 4.5% EBITDA margin, which is comparatively lesser than company’s EBITDA of 9.6%. Organized pharmacy retail holds less than 5% of $15Bn domestic pharmaceutical market of India, which is likely to increase by 12% CAGR by over the next 10year time-span that would be predominantly driven by volume growth.
The company has been currently experiencing nearly 27% growth in business with improved operational performance of flagship hospital business. The merged EBITDA rose at 11.3%, while the hospital business EBITDA rose at 18.2%. New hospitals revenue growth increased by 23% with majority revenue share from Tamil Nadu, which consisted of Rs.979.8Cr. Shares of Apollo has increased by 1.82% for closing at Rs.11, 66.15 on BSE.
Forward Looking Plans
Shobana Kamineni has been focusing on creating a multi-year development platform with the expansion of pharmacy outlets to be nearly 5,000 from current 3,167 in the next 5years and is also anticipating a turnover of Rs.100Bn revenue. She further stated that approximately 20% revenue growth would be from the online segment. In addition, Apollo is planning to enhance its private label business to over 12%. Apollo will be entering into brand licensing contract with the APL for licensing Apollo Pharmacy to online pharmacy operations and frontend stores.
Spin-offs have outperformed broadly in the business world with increasing unique investment opportunities expected to take place. By spinning-off pharmacy business, AMPL can remove debt from balance sheet, thereby improving its total margin levels, which in turn becomes valuable for investors.