Metropolis Healthcare Closes Slightly Up In Stock Market Debut

Shares of Metropolis Healthcare Ltd. closed slightly higher the opening price of Rs 958 apiece on the National Stock Exchange Ltd. The stock opened at about 9 percent premium on the issue price of Rs 880, and had dipped 2.4 percent to hit the low of Rs 935, before rising to close at Rs 959.85.

The stock ended marginally lower on Bombay Stock Exchange Ltd.

The Mumbai-based diagnostic firm’s Rs 1,204-crore initial public offering was subscribed 5.84 times, driven by a strong subscription from qualified institutional investors. The price band had been fixed at Rs 877-880 per share.

Metropolis Healthcare is present across 19 states, especially in the western and southern parts of India. The diagnostic firm offers services in 197 cities across the country via self-owned and third-party owned patient service centres.

The company operates through the ‘hub-and-spoke’ model that includes reference laboratories, satellite laboratories and collection centres. It has 115 clinical labs across key cities, with one global reference laboratory in Mumbai, 14 regional reference laboratories, 56 satellite laboratories and 44 express laboratories.

It mainly conducts three types of diagnostic tests—routine tests, semi-specialised tests and specialised tests—for individual patients as well as institutional customers. It has 1,631 touch points for individual patients and 9,552 for institutional customers.

Metropolis Healthcare is currently a debt free company. The company’s revenue grew at an annualised rate of 16 percent over financial years 2016 to 2018. Its operating and net profit grew at 17 percent and 16 percent, respectively, during the period.

“We are in a growth stage in our business...and the growth rate that we are currently seeing, we believe would be very sustainable,” Ameera Shah, managing director of Metropolis Healthcare told BloombergQuint in an interview.

Watch the complete interaction with Metropolis Healthcare here: