METRO Pacific Hospital Holdings Inc., the hospital investment arm of Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), said it will operate a 110-bed hospital in Zamboanga City.
The company said in its disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange that it formed a wholly-owned subsidiary under the name of Metro Pacific Zamboanga Hospital Corp. The new facility will have the proposed name of West Metro Medical Center.
It said the company last month signed a long-term lease on the land, buildings and equipment of Western Mindanao Medical Center, a hospital with a 25-year history of service in Zamboanga. “The effectivity of the lease and the official opening of West Metro Medical Center are subject to several conditions precedent, including fulfillment of certain regulatory requirements,” the company said.
The company said it will install a new management team and will infuse capital to complete a four-story annex building. It did not state how much it infused in the hospital.
The fund is intended to increase the hospital’s capacity from 110 to 190 beds, making it the largest private hospital in the Zamboanga Peninsula.
“West Metro Medical Center will become the ninth hospital in Metro Pacific’s growing nationwide chain of private hospitals, the largest in the Philippines at 2,244 beds,” the company said.
Other hospitals in the Metro Pacific portfolio include Makati Medical Center, Asian Hospital and Medical Center, Cardinal Santos Medical Center, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, De Los Santos Medical Center, Davao Doctors Hospital, Riverside Medical Center in Bacolod and Central Luzon Doctors Hospital in Tarlac.
The hospital group, however, was one of the lower contributors of MPIC in its income for last year.
Income of the hospitals group dropped by 20 percent to P465 million to P581 million, as a result of the lower stake of the MPIC group in its hospital arm.
Last year Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, or Government of Singapore Investment Corp., invested P3.7 billion for a 14.4-percent stake in Metro Pacific Hospital Holdings Inc. It also made an advance of P6.5 billion in exchangeable bond with MPIC, which can be exchanged into a 25.5-percent stake in the hospitals group.