Vedanta Group's Agnivesh picks up 60 percent stake in Primex Healthcare

Chennai, April 16 (IANS) Agnivesh Agarwal, a member of the founding family of the $11.4 billion-turnover diversified Vedanta group and chairman of Hindustan Zinc Ltd, has picked up 60 percent stake for an undisclosed sum in the city-based Primex Healthcare owning a chain of diagnostic centres, a top official said Monday.

"Agarwal has invested in his personal capacity and is a strategic investor. We have already started working with Vedanta Foundation on the healthcare side. The stake holding by Agarwal will enable Primex Healthcare to look at the corporate segment for business," Anand Mahadevan, managing director of Primex Healthcare, told IANS.

However, he declined to share any financial details of the deal.

According to him, Primex Healthcare will operate chain of owned diagnostic centres while Primex Scans and Labs would manage the centres owned by franchisees.

"Initially, both the businesses -- owned centres and franchisees -- were under Primex Scans and later it was bifurcated. While Agarwal has acquired 60 percent in Primex Healthcare, the balance 40 percent is with Primex Scans," Mahadevan added.

According to Agarwal, the Indian diagnostics services market has many local players and a few regional and national players and their services are costly.

Kalpathi S. Suresh, chairman and CEO, Kalpathi Investments said: "With Primex having established a strong presence in Tamil Nadu including a set of credible owned-centres in Chennai, I am confident that Agnivesh's insights and thoughtfulness will add significant value to the company as it enters the next phase of expansion."

According to Mahadeven, Primex Healthcare can also be a franchisee of Primex Scans within India and would also look at setting up centres overseas.

City-based venture capital firm Kalpathi Investments and Mahadevan hold 40 percent stake each in Primex Scans and the balance 20 percent is held by several high networth individuals.

Meanwhile, Primex Scans plans to grow its business by expanding its franchisee network across the southern region by adding around 200 scan centres.

"Currently, we have 50 franchisee owned centres and the plan is to increase the number to 200 in a year's time," Mahadevan said.