Medical services firm looks to U.S.
Pitch to Wall Street investors for initial share sale of mainland industry leader iKangis expected to be aided by health-care reforms
Goldman Sachs-backed iKang Guobin Healthcare, mainland China’s leading privately held medical services provider, is considering launching an initial public offering in the United States next year.
The aim is to attract Wall Street investors ahead of what is shaping up as the mainland’s biggest public health care reform in decades.
Sources familiar with the matter said members of iKang’s board met recently to approve a plan to go public – most likely on Nasdaq – at an appropriate time next year.
Goldman’s internal alternative investment group, known as the Principal Investment Area (PIA) team, and the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) – the city state’s sovereign wealth fund – bought a minority equity stake in iKang for US$100 million in April in a joint investment widely expected to be the last private capital injection before the company goes public.
Beijing-based iKang offers a wide range of health care-related services to individual and corporate clients on the mainland, including many from the country’s burgeoning number of middle-class families.
Its services include annual checkups, outpatient and dental services for individuals and health care management services for big companies.
The size of iKang’s proposed IPO remains unclear.