Q&M

Q&M - Latest news on the co. was this mth, where grp announced the proposed takeover of Singapore Medical Grp. To finance the proposed deal, Q & M will mainly use proceeds from placement of shares, together with internal funds and current credit lines. The proposed deal is expected to create a regional healthcare group that offers comprehensive and holistic medical care from unique specialty, in line with the trend of increasing consumer expenditure on healthcare services, longer life expectancy among Asians and stronger purchasing power in Asia. SMG currently operates 15 medical clinics in SG which are categorized into four medical clusters: Eye, Aesthetics, Orthopaedic and Sports, and Critical Illness. Both Q & M and SMG would be able to better complement its current businesses and operations through the sharing of resources such as premises, supporting staff and management, and enhancing the availability of specialty dental and medical care to their combined pool of patients. SMG currently has a patient database in excess of 80,000, while Q & M has more than 450,000 patients in its database. Seperately note also that Q&M's main growth driver is China, where Q&M plans to invest RMB 400m to have 50 dental clinics and 20 laboratories by 2015 through JV’s mainly and, partly, its own Q&M dental clinics in Shanghai. Q&M is working on several JVs and targeting to achieve an aggregate profit of RMB 80m from China, and mgt has reiterated that it aims to seek an IPO for the PRC business either in China or Hong Kong in 3-5 yrs.