IHH Healthcare: Penang: A strategic blueprint for Malaysia growth

Amanda Tan22 Jan 2025
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• Doubling down on growth, enhancing Malaysia’s hospital network could fuel IHH MY’s topline growth at a 13% CAGR
• Island Hospital acquisition cements IHH MY’s leadership and boosts medical tourism revenues by >2x
• On ground site visit highlights Penang growth story as a piece of a larger puzzle; further expansion to come from other regions 
• Maintain BUY with an unchanged TP of MYR8.50 / SGD2.58


33% boost in organic bed capacity across regions to drive a 10% CAGR in hospital and healthcare revenue. IHH plans to boost its total organic operational bed capacity by 33%, equating to an increase of around 4,000 beds. Most of this growth will come from India, where 1,860 (+34%) new beds will be added, followed by Malaysia with 1,300 (+46%) beds. Europe will see an addition of 400 (+38%) beds while Hong Kong and Turkiye are expected to contribute with 170 (+65%) and 120 (+5%) additional beds,respectively. In Singapore, the expansion will focus primarily on the establishment of more than 15 new clinics and the launch of two new ambulatory care centres.

Doubling down on growth and enhancing network of hospitals in Malaysia could fuel IHH MY’s topline growth at a 13% CAGR. IHH Malaysia boasts of an extensive network of hospitals comprising 11 Pantai hospitals, four Gleneagles Hospitals, one Island Hospital, one Prince Court Medical Centre, and one Timberland Medical Centre. IHH’s Penang is the second largest cluster in Malaysia afterKlang Valley, and we believe it will be a strategic frontier for growth, especially after the Island Hospital acquisition. On a broader country level, we expect IHH to retain its stronghold in Malaysia as it executes on its target to add 1300 beds by 2028 via organic expansion. Considering these expansion plans, we project IHH Malaysia’s topline growth at a 13% CAGR between FY23-FY26F. 

On ground site visit highlights Penang growth story as a piece of a larger puzzle; more room for patients across all three hospitals in the years ahead. During the site visit to Penang, management was upbeat on growth potential of IHH’s hospitals. Bed count could grow more than 60% comprising 500 additional beds in Island Hospital, 20 more beds in Gleneagles Penang, and 139 new beds in Pantai Hospital Penang. A myriad of initiatives – such as utilising available land bank, shifting out non-core functions out of the hospital, and the construction of new blocks would be key to generating the additional bed capacity. 

Island hospital acquisition cements IHH’s leadership… Island Hospital is the No.1 medical tourism hospital in Malaysia and the second largest private hospital player in Penang. The acquisition of Island Hospital (600 built bed capacity) for an equity consideration of MYR3.9bn was completed in early November 2024 and raised IHH’s market share in Penang by patient volume from the mid-twenties’ percentage range to over 40%.

…enabling IHH to leapfrog its medical tourism contributions in Penang…. Following the Island Hospital acquisition, over 33% of medical tourists will now utilise IHH Malaysia’s hospital network, more than doubling IHH Malaysia’s medical tourism revenues. Going forward, Island Hospital also targets to grow its medical tourism revenues – from c.60% currently to 80% – as growth ofnternational revenues outpace the low-single-digit growth rates of local revenues. Moreover, we understand that medical tourism also commands higher margins due to a higher premium for health travellers as well as case complexity, which should provide an uplift to margins, all else constant.

…and achieve synergies over MYR200mn. In addition to topline accretion to IHH, the Island Hospital acquisition is also expected to be EPS accretive from 2026 with synergies >MYR200mn to be realised over the next five years arising from both revenue (cross referral, sharing best practices) and cost synergies (procurement and process optimisation). For example, patients from Gleneagles Penang who require the use of advanced medical imaging equipment such as PET (Position Emission Tomography) can be diverted to Island Hospital, due to its proximity.

Maintain BUY with an unchanged TP RM8.50/SGD2.58. Overall, we remain positive on IHH’s growth story across the regions that it operates in. Despite plans for capacity increases, EBITDA margins are forecast to be relatively stable within the 22-24% range. We thus maintain our BUY call with our TP based on an SOP valuation methodology on FY25F EBITDA. No change to estimates or EV/EBITDA multiples ranging between 10-20x based on its various geographical markets






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