KUALA LUMPUR: IHH Healthcare Bhd plans to refinance up to US$250 million (US$1=RM4.18) of its non-lira debt and exchange some of the amount into Turkish lira this year to reduce its exposure to the lira volatility.
Group chief financial officer Low Soon Teck said the company had reduced its non-lira debt to US$420 million from US$670 million previously.
“We have to do it in stages, and it will be done within this year to reduce the forex (foreign exchange) volatility,” he told a press conference after the company’s annual general meeting here, today.
IHH’s net profit for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2018 (FY18) fell to RM627.69 million from RM969.95 million previously, mainly due to the higher net forex losses for its Turkey-based healthcare group Acibadem Holdings’s non-lira loans.
Low said with the lower foreign currency loan, it would reduce the company’s exposure to the Turkish lira depreciation.
“The group is looking to conserving the foreign currency cash received from foreign patients to accumulate the cash to pay down the debt further, in the course of the year,” he added.
Meanwhile, on the development of IHH’s 31.1 per cent-owned Mumbai-based unit, Fortis Healthcare Ltd, whereby India’s Supreme Court had ordered to put IHH’s transaction of an additional 26 per cent stake acquisition in Fortis on hold, Low stressed that the court’s order would not result in any impact or resulted in any impairment on Fortis.
He said this was because the supreme court’s order was only on the mandatory open offer for the stakeholders.
Recently, analysts had voiced their concerns over IHH’s acquisition of Fortis, and viewed the latter as having the highest impairment risk for the healthcare group.
Meanwhile, IHH managing director and chief executive officer Dr Tan See Leng said the group had completed all initiatives under its 100-day turnaround plan for Fortis following the acquisition of the latter in November 2018.
Among them was the revival of Fortis’s earnings to a net profit of Rs 135.6 crore (100 Rs=RM6.01) for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2019, from a net loss of Rs 932 crore in the same period last year, he added.