The Bangalore-headquartered Manipal Hospitals on Wednesday announced its acquisition of 84 per cent stake in four hospitals of the Emami group-owned AMRI, three in Calcutta and another in Bhubaneswar.

According to sources, the deal amounts to around Rs 2,300 crore.

As part of the deal, Manipal Hospitals will run the AMRI units at Dhakuria, Mukundapur and Salt Lake along with the one in Bhubaneswar. The Emami group will continue to own the dental and diagnostic clinics in Calcutta, said an official.

The name of all four hospitals will be changed from AMRI to Manipal Hospitals over a period of time, said Dilip Jose, managing director and CEO, Manipal Health Enterprises Pvt Ltd (Manipal Hospitals). The group’s existing hospital in Salt Lake was formerly Columbia Asia before the takeover.

“We would like to change the names to one brand, Manipal Hospitals. It will be easier for the patients. The change of brand name will take some time, maybe around six months,” Jose said from Bangalore.

He said Manipal Hospitals was the second largest hospital chain in India with 9,500 beds, more than 5,000 doctors and about 20,000 employees.

The four AMRI hospitals have 1,200 beds, around 800 doctors and about 4,500 employees, he said.

“This is our foothold in eastern India. We are looking at more hospitals in selective towns and cities in Bengal, like Siliguri and Durgapur. In Odisha, we now have one hospital and will look at other hospitals,” Jose said.

“We believe the eastern part of India is underserved in terms of healthcare. People have to travel long distances for treatment. Our flagship hospital in Bangalore gets a significant number of patients from Bengal,” said Jose.

“We will be able to bring in our capabilities. We want to bring quality healthcare closer.”

Temasek, a Singapore-based investment firm, has bought majority stake in Manipal Health Enterprises (MHE). The Manipal group, the promoters of MHE, now holds a 30 per cent stake in the hospital chain, and Temasek 59 per cent.

Temasek also holds the majority stake in Medica Superspeciality Hospital in Calcutta.

Aditya Agarwal, one of the directors of the Emami group, said they would continue as an investor in AMRI Hospitals with a 15 per cent stake. The Bengal government has around 1 per cent stake in the hospital chain.

The state government had reduced its stake from 26 per cent after the 2011 fire at the Dhakuria hospital that killed more than 90 people, sources said.

Both Agarwal and Manish Goenka, another director of the Emami group, said they retained the 15 per cent stake because “AMRI has been very close to our heart”.

“In an endeavour to focus on our core businesses, we have divested our majority stake in AMRI Hospitals," Agarwal said. The core business of Emami includes FMCG, foods and biodiesel, realty, retail, newsprint and paperboards and art.

The talks for the takeover between Manipal Hospitals and the Emami group were going on for around three years, sources said. “The Covid pandemic had slowed down the process,” said a source.

The advisers for Manipal Health Enterprises Pvt Ltd in this initiative were Allegro Capital Advisors.