Sunway Healthcare Holdings—controlled by Malaysian billionaire Jeffrey Cheah—is gearing up for an IPO to help bankroll its 1.6 billion ringgit ($381 million) expansion plan.
The company plans to offer up to 1.9 billion shares, equivalent to a 17% stake. The maiden share sale will include 1.39 billion existing shares and 575 million new shares, according to the preliminary prospectus filed with the Securities Commission Malaysia. The company hasn’t disclosed the pricing and timeline for the IPO.
“We have strong growth prospects supported by a clear expansion plan,” the company said in the prospectus.
After the IPO, Sunway City will own 69.5% of Sunway Healthcare, while Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC will hold 7.5%. The IPO proceeds will be used to help finance its expansion plans and repay debt.
Sunway Healthcare plans to build a new 401-bed hospital in Iskandar Puteri in the southern Malaysian state of Johor. To be built at a cost of 766 million ringgit and expected to be completed by 2032, the hospital will be among new developments in the area, which Malaysia and Singapore are jointly developing as a special economic zone. Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim’s Thomson Medical Group is building a 500-bed hospital in Johor as part of an 18-billion-ringgit mixed use project that will also feature a hotel, a residential tower and commercial amenities.
Malaysia is rapidly expanding its hospital capacity as it seeks to become one of the region’s major destinations for medical tourism. Outside of Johor, Kuala Lumpur-based Sunway Healthcare plans to invest 855 million ringgit to double the company’s hospital beds to over 3,400 by 2032 from 1,520 beds at the end of last year.
With a real-time net worth of $4.3 billion, Cheah is among Malaysia’s wealthiest. He transformed Sunway from an obscure tin-mining company over the last five decades into one of the country’s biggest conglomerates with interests in construction, education, healthcare, infrastructure and real estate. The group has been expanding its property business in Singapore in recent years. Last week, it agreed to buy Singapore-based homebuilder MCL Land for S$739 million ($578 million).
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