Parkway 3Q profit rises 23% to S$15 Million
Parkway 3Q profit rises 23% to S$15 Million
Yoolim Lee, Bloomberg/Singapore
Parkway Holdings Ltd., Asia's second-biggest publicly traded hospital operator, said third-quarter profit rose 23 percent because more overseas patients sought treatment at its hospitals in Singapore.
Net income climbed to S$15 million (US$8.8 million), or 2.05 cents a share, in the three months ended Sept. 30, from S$12.2 million, or 1.68 cents a share, a year earlier, the company said on Monday in a filing to the Singapore stock exchange. Sales rose 15 percent to S$118.8 million.
Parkway is aiming to benefit from increased demand for private hospital services in Southeast Asia as the population ages and more overseas patients seek special treatment at its hospitals in Singapore.
"We continue to see strong growth in the number of tertiary cases and foreign patients coming to our Singapore hospitals as well as steady growth in our international hospitals," Parkway Managing Director Lim Cheok Peng said in the statement.
In the third quarter, new neuro-surgery and urology centers in East Shore Hospital, a refurnished day ward and an endoscopy center in Mount Elizabeth Hospital and a sports medicine center at Gleneagles Hospital added to growth in revenue, it said.
Parkway plans to expand its health-care business in the region by acquiring more companies.
"We will continue to seek opportunities to further augment our leading market position and in turn maximize returns to our shareholders," Chairman Richard Seow said in the statement.
Parkway's wholly owned unit Gleneagles Management Services recently signed an agreement to manage the Asian Heart Institute and Research Centre, marking its entry to the health-care market in Mumbai, according to the statement.
Parkway will provide management and operational support to the center, an advanced cardiac-care specialty hospital that is owned by Contemporary Healthcare Private Ltd. of India.
The agreement "provides us deeper inroads into the rapidly growing private health-care market in India," Lim said.
Parkway in September spent S$139 million to buy 31 percent of Pantai Holdings Bhd., Malaysia's biggest private health-care service provider, to expand in Southeast Asia.
In India, the second-fastest growing major economy in the world behind China, Parkway has operations in Calcutta, Hyderabad and Mumbai. In Malaysia, where the economy is forecast by the central bank to expand as much as 6 percent this year, it has hospitals in Kuala Lumpur and Penang.
In the first nine months of this year, Parkway's net income rose 18 percent from a year ago to S$44.3 million. Sales rose 10 percent to S$335.1 million, reflecting increased contribution from Singapore hospitals totaling S$219.1 million.
Admissions for Singapore hospitals rose 3.6 percent from a year earlier in the first nine months. Day cases rose more than 2 percent. Growth was driven by patients from Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates seeking high-end treatment at Parkway's hospitals, it said.
Revenue from international hospitals totaled S$42.5 million in the first nine months of the year, boosted by those in Brunei and Penang, Malaysia.