Singapore-listed hospital operator IHH Healthcare eyes Indonesia, Vietnam for expansion

Kuala Lumpur – IHH Healthcare is looking to potential new markets Indonesia and Vietnam as the Malaysian hospital operator continues building scale to offset rising healthcare costs in the region. 

Indonesia is attractive, thanks to its healthcare reforms and foreign ownership relaxation, while Vietnam has emerged as a booming market, according to group chief executive Prem Kumar Nair. 

“We get a lot of patients from Vietnam into our Singapore operations,” he said in an interview in Kuala Lumpur this week.

In Singapore, IHH operates 793 beds across four hospitals – Gleneagles Hospital, Mount Elizabeth Hospital, Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital and Parkway East Hospital, according to its website. It also has 30 Parkway Shenton clinics, as well as other speciality and ancillary services.

The company operates more than 80 hospitals in 10 countries, including India and China, and has been actively acquiring healthcare facilities in recent years. It bought Island Hospital in Malaysia in 2024. Its Turkish unit Acibadem and Indian affiliate Fortis Healthcare have also purchased hospitals in their respective markets in the last two years. 

The company has US$14 billion (S$17.9 billion) in market capitalisation and is the most valuable listed hospital operator in South-east Asia.

The desire to widen expansion in the region comes as IHH looks to make up for rising import costs in the industry. The company is now procuring medical equipment, consumables and generic medications in bulk to cut costs on imported items, Dr Nair said. 

IHH is also planning to consolidate its presence in China, according to the CEO. It has turned its clinic business into a profitable operation and is seeing a rising number of patients at its hospital in Shanghai.

Still, China’s decision to ease restrictions on foreign investment in the healthcare sector will not immediately sway IHH into expanding further in the world’s second-largest economy.

“In China, the public sector is a very big competitor to private healthcare,” said Dr Nair. “We are the only foreign operator in China who has a combination of clinics, and an ecosystem, so we will build on it.”

The company’s priorities also include tapping growing opportunities in existing markets, where it is already committed to expanding hospital bed capacity by 33 per cent from 2024 to 2028 – a 4,000 bed target. 

“There’s no dearth of opportunities in the countries we operate,” he added. 

Beyond hospitals

IHH booked RM6.29 billion (S$1.9 billion) in first-quarter revenue, an increase of 5.7 per cent from a year ago. Its profit slid 33 per cent to RM514 million, which the company attributed to exceptional accounting adjustments.

Singapore, Turkey and Malaysia are its main revenue drivers, but the company expects India to become a major contributor in the coming years amid booming demand for private healthcare. With 35 hospitals, India already has IHH’s biggest in-country network.

Dr Nair said he was focused on growing out-of-hospital care in IHH’s markets – including ambulatory surgical and care centres, along with primary care centres – to help control cost pressures. The company operates 60 healthcare facilities that are not hospitals. 

“If we depend on hospitals alone, healthcare costs are going to rise tremendously,” he added. 

Singapore already has such an ecosystem in place while Hong Kong is headed in that direction, Dr Nair said. Still, its home market of Malaysia does not allow hospital operators to also run other healthcare facilities. 

IHH hopes to persuade Malaysia’s Health Ministry to change the rule. “We definitely want to move, in Malaysia, into the out-of-hospital sector in a big way as well,” he said. 

Dual-listed IHH shares in Malaysia have dropped 8.4 per cent so far in 2025, while the Kuala Lumpur stock index has fallen around 7 per cent amid concerns over US tariffs.

Its Singapore shares were trading at $2.03 as at 10.57am on July 9, down 7.3 per cent for the year. BLOOMBERG