Amar Ujala has bought a majority stake in a private equity-backed hospital chain Cygnus Medicare for $18.18m.
Under the deal, Amar Ujala’s two hospitals – one at Uttarakhand and the other at Haryana – will be combined with Cygnus Medicare, reported the Press Trust of India.
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Amar Ujala director Probal Ghosal will serve as the chairman of the merged entity, while Cygnus’ current promoters, Dinesh Batra and Shuchin Bajaj will continue to be CEO and director, respectively.
The transaction also allowed Cygnus to provide complete exits to its angel investors, while its private equity investors, Eight Roads Ventures and Somerset Indus, could make partial exits, reported Vccircle.com.
Cygnus promoters and private equity investors will continue to have their remaining interests.
Amar Ujala, through its healthcare unit, will not only hold the majority stake but also have management control.
Cygnus intends to have around 20 hospitals over the next three years. It presently has more than 1,000 beds spread across its ten hospitals that are located in Delhi and Haryana.
Set up in 2011, Cygnus had combined with Altius Healthcare, which was established in 2008.
Sequoia, a venture capital firm, exchanged its interest in Altius for Cygnus, and then exited the firm and got 1.5 times returns after Mumbai-based healthcare-focused fund Somerset invested in Cygnus in 2013, VCCircle had then reported.
Eight Roads Ventures led a $10m investment round in 2014. Evolvence, through its Evolvence India Fund II, invested about $3m in Cygnus two years later. In 2017, the hospital chain raised new capital from its existing investors.
