The stock traded at Rs 112.35, up 5 per cent over the opening level. The stock has been admitted to dealings in the list of ‘T’ group of securities on BSE.

With this, the company became the first healthcare company to get listed in India with a private equity player (KKR) as its largest promoter with a 52 per cent stake. It is also the only leading hospital chain to not have a medical doctor at the helm or among its seven-member board of directors.

While private equity investment has been on a rise in the Indian healthcare sector, MHIL is the first hospital chain to have been promoted and governed by private equity experts with a clear profit motive and having doctors provide their professional services at the company’s hospitals. This business model, if proven to be successful, is likely to gain traction.

The company has been formed out of the demerger of Max India’s hospital business and the subsequent merger of Radiant Life Care with it.

MHIL is currently operating at a capacity utilisation of 65 per cent against the pre-Covid level of 72 per cent and potential of over 80 per cent. The management expects to outperform peers in the current fiscal. The company has the potential to add around 2,300 beds at lower capex and faster time to market with no ramp-up period. It plans to scale up and unlock the value of its non-captive pathology lab business.

Operationally, the company has higher average revenue per bed and better return ratios with a clear focus on profitability in an industry characterised by low return on capital employed. It is the only one among its peers to have posted a sequential gain in revenues from the third to the fourth quarter of the last fiscal.