Promoter of Hitech will be part of Metropolis team, says Metropolis’ Ameera Shah

The promoter of Hitech will be a part of the Metropolis Team, said Ameera Shah, the managing director of the firm on Monday. The stock price of the company is buzzing in trade today following its acquisition of Ganesan's Hitech Diagnostic Centre in South India for just over Rs 600 crore. Shah spoke to CNBC-TV18 on the acquisition and business outlook for the rest of the year.

On the acquisition, Shah said, “The pathologist founder is an important part of the team and while of course he will come on board and be part of our team in integrating it, of course, that is relevant there. In terms of the Goodwill, the asset value in our industry tends to be lower; but what really is the value is the goodwill value of the customer contracts, the relationship, the brand that has been built over many years.”

On the margins from Hitech, Shah said, “2019-2020 the margins of Hitech were similar to Metropolis margin in 2019-2020, so we believe there could be scope for synergies there. At this point, if time both brands will continue and then we will sort of take it gradually and see whether we want to bring in the front end together as well.”

On acquisitions, Shah said, “I don’t think we can expect anything to happen in this financial year in the next two months. There are discussions going on but our goal at this point of time is to really focus on integrating, closing the transaction and getting the maximum value for shareholders.”

Shah also said, “As of September 2020 we had almost Rs 325 crore of internal accruals in our books, so we will be utilising a significant part of that towards that acquisition, the balance of it which could be up to Rs 300 crore we would take as debt.”