MPIC buys 51% equity in Tarlac's largest hospital for P187-M

Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC) has acquired a 51-percent stake in Tarlac's largest private hospital, Central Luzon Doctors' Hospital (CLDH), for P187 million, the company said Monday.

 

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, MPIC said it signed an investment agreement with CLDH for a P187-million cash infusion to obtain a 51-percent equity ownership in the hospital.

 

CLDH is a 200-bed tertiary hospital founded in 1962 by 15 pioneering doctors led by the late spouses Dr. Constante D. Quirino Sr. and Mrs. Remedios P. Quirino, and their associate Dr. Benjamin S. Paz.

 

The investment in CLDH will increase the MPIC Hospital Group's total bed capacity to 2,137 beds,

 

MPIC said the funding will go towards the purchase of major medical equipment and the implementation of an infrastructure development plan highlighted by the construction of a new building to house new operating rooms, additional patient beds and doctors' clinic.

 

"This is our first investment in a hospital in Luzon outside Metro Manila,”Augusto P. Palisoc, Jr., president and CEO of the MPIC Hospital Group, said in a statement. 

 

“Through our contributions by way of fresh capital, professional management assistance, and group synergies, we hope to further expand the capabilities of CLDH so that residents of Central Luzon in general, and Tarlac in particular, can continue to receive first-class health care right in their home province," he added.

 

Once the transaction is complete—likely in the first quarter—CLDH will become MPIC's eighth hospital after the Makati Medical Center (2007), Davao Doctors Hospital (2008), Cardinal Santos Medical Center (2009), Riverside Medical Center (2010), Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital (2010), Asian Hospital (2011) and, just recently, De Los Santos Medical Center (June 2013). — Danessa Rivera/VS, GMA News