GPT Healthcare Ltd (NSE: GPTHEALTH) Q3 2025 Earnings Call dated Feb. 12, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Anurag Tantia — Executive Director
Atul Tantia — Group Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Akhilesh Gandhi — Analyst
Aman — Analyst
Naman Bhansali — Analyst
Rishabh — Analyst
Sunil Jain — Analyst
Anuj Kashyap — Analyst
Raghav — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to GPT Healthcare Limited Q3 and 9 months FY25 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Akhilesh Gandhi from Stellar IR Advisors. Thank you. And over to you Mr. Gandhi.
Akhilesh Gandhi — Analyst
Thank you, Nirav. Good morning everyone. I, Akhilesh Gandhi, on behalf of Stella Investor Relations welcome you all to GPT Healthcare’s quarter three and nine month earnings conference call. We shall be sharing the key operating and financial highlights for the third quarter and nine months ended on December 31, 2024. Today we have with us management team of GPT Healthcare Limited. We have Mr. Anurag Tantia, Executive Director Ms. Kriti Tantia, Chief Financial Officer and Mr. Atul Tantia, Group Chief Financial Officer, GPD Group.
And before we begin I would like to state that this call may contain some of the forward looking statements which are completely based upon the company’s beliefs, opinions and expectations as of today. The statements made in today’s call are not a guarantee of future performance and also involve unforeseen risks and uncertainties. The company also undertakes no obligation to update any forward looking statements to reflect development that occur after the statement is made. Documents relating to company’s financial performance including investor presentation and press release have already been uploaded on the Stock Exchange and the company’s website.
And now I invite Mr. Anurag Tantia to state his opening remarks on the company’s performance for the third quarter and nine months. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Anurag Tantia — Executive Director
Thank you, Akhilesh. Good morning everyone and welcome to GPT Healthcare Limited’s earning constant calls for the third quarter and nine months ended December 31st, 2024. Today we also have on call with us our investor relations advisor Stellar ir. GPT Healthcare Limited is the healthcare arm of GPT Group. We are driven by the ethos to provide quality health care particularly in the underserved regions like eastern part of the country through our neighborhood tertiary care hospitals.
Coming to the financial highlights. The revenue from operations stood for the third quarter at 102 crores up 6% yoy basis. The pack for Q3 has increased by 6% also on a yoy basis to 12 crores. Alos has reduced from 3.98 in nine months last year. To 3.54 in nine months FY25. The same is on account of our continuous efforts towards changing the case mix.
Revenues for Q3 FY25 stood 102 crores, with EBITDA at 23 crores and EBITDA margin at 22.7 crores. Profit after tax for nine months stood at 37 crores with a pack margin of 12% and the first nine months witnessed a 5.7% year on year growth. EBITDA margin stood at 22% with a slight increase of 2% in EBITDA for the nine months to 69.6 crores. Finance costs have come down by 55% on account of reduction of debt. The existing four hospitals in Salt Lake, Agartala, Dumdam and Havra are improving in all financial and operational metrics.
Notably our RPOP stands at 36,700 aligning with our commitment to serving the aspiring population of the society with higher disposable income in the middle to high income segment. Moreover, due to our neighborhood model, approximately 94% of the business continues to be from cash and insurance patients. The company level bed occupancy currently stands at around 54% primarily on account of reduction of the length of stay coming to the hospital. Wise Performance ILS Hospital Salt Lake is an 85 bed with surgical excellence hospital.
The RPAP for this hospital has risen by 16.6% from 33,600 to 39,209 months. FY25 in our pursuit of optimizing services we have been able to reduce the length of stay to 2.82 from 3.22 on a year on year BAS the Agartala Hospital has the presence of 66 critical care beds across all bed categories and has commenced its journey towards providing full fledged oncology services as well as guided earlier. The radiation oncology components are under installation and would be commissioned in Q4.
The RPOB has increased by 28% on a YoY basis to 33,500 for Q3FY25 combined with the length of stay reduction to 3.58 from 4.0 to in Q3FY24. The Dum Dum Hospital has recorded an RPOB of approximately 41,200 for the quarter. In line with our intent to reduce the length of stay of this hospital, the length of stays reduced to 4.57 days compared to 5.29 days in the same quarter last year. This has correspondingly led to a slight dip in occupancy as well as overall inpatient work.
Despite overall inpatient volumes increasing, the company intends to commence a full fledged cardiothoracic setup and revamp its other clinical offerings in this hospital to further strengthen its scope of services. The Havana Hospital continues to grow from a revenue and patient volume basis. We have also commenced robotic knee surgeries. In this hospital, the inpatient volume has seen a slight increase by 4.4%, while the outpatient volumes increased by 19% on a YoY basis for the same quarter last year.
RPAP for nine months, FY25, has increased by 21% on a YoY basis to 31,850, with the length of stay coming down to 3.4 days compared to 3.8 days nine months uncendant FY24 as previously announced, we are steadfast to become a thousand bed hospital chain within the next two to three years. ILS Hospital Raipur 152 bed facility is expected to commence operations in early April with a 55 crore investment and an Asset light rental based model. The hospital features ICUs HDUs OTs and specializes in oncology care as well.
Equipped with advanced technologies like A3 Tesla MRI, a dual source CT, it is designed for quaternary care and complex treatments supported by a highly skilled team. Additionally, we have signed a mou for our third hospital in Jamshedpur which will have a capacity of 150 beds and an estimated outlay of approximately 65 crores. This target underscores our commitment to scaling our operations and reaching more communities in need of quality healthcare services.
By expanding our footprint and enhancing our capabilities, we aim to make a meaningful impact on healthcare accessibility and patient outcomes across the Eastern Indian region. This vision drives us forward, guiding our strategic decisions and ensuring that we continue to lead the way in delivering excellence in healthcare.
Thank you for your attention and I look forward to addressing any queries you may have.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the attached tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles participants. You may press star and one to ask the question. Ladies and gentlemen you may best start in one to ask the question. The first question is from line of Aman from Philip Capital. Please go in.
Aman
Thank you for the opportunity. I had a question on your rpops. So if you look at your rpops you know they’ve grown pretty well between 10 20% across hospitals, right? So if you could just give us a breakup of what exactly has led to this growth. So will that be the case mix that has changed over the years or because we do not really actively give out the case mix also so some color on that would be great.
Anurag Tantia
Hi Aman, thank you for the query. Yes, the growth in RPOB has been a culmination of various factors. It is definitely an impact of case mix across all our hospitals. We are focusing on more complex treatments including transplants, including robotic knee surgeries and other higher tertiary care treatment so that has definitely impacted the rpob. That combined with insurance rate renewals which have happened in the past year have led to the increase in rpob.
Aman
Okay. And if. And do we. Do we do any. Any amount of international patient business currently?
Anurag Tantia
So our Azertala hospital did have certain percentage of patients coming in through Bangladesh which was. Because the Bangladesh border is only half an hour away from our Agartala hospital. So almost 10% of our volumes were from Bangladesh. But this has had an impact in Q3 on account of the dispute in Bangladesh. That has been a problem for us.
Aman
Okay, got it. And secondly, the question would be on the RIPO expansion that we are undertaking. So if you could just give us some idea of what the micro market is like for Raipur. Because one of your other I think peers has also expanded in the similar region. Right. So what gives us the confidence of going into a T2 city and you know, setting up a quaternary care, you know, sort of infrastructure. So if some color on that would be great too. Thanks.
Anurag Tantia
So if you look at the market of Chhattisgarh at this point there are only two national players present which is in the form of care and Narayan Haddalay. Apart from that, there are smaller hospitals or homegrown Chhattisgarh hospitals. The overall bed to population ratio at Raipur at Chhattisgarh overall is dismally low at just 11 to 12 beds per 10,000 population, which is much lesser compared to what is actually required.
There is enough scope in this market for another quaternary care player to come in. And there are enough options available from a real estate perspective. Also, having done our market survey and having understood the market, we realized that the potential was pretty high and that’s why we expanded to this location.
Operator
Aman, sorry to interrupt. You’re not audible at all.
Aman
Hello.
Anurag Tantia
Yes, go ahead.
Aman
I’m audible.
Anurag Tantia
Yeah.
Aman
So lastly my question would be on the. The strategy that we are. So will we be more of a mass market player here or will we stick specific to premium care and all that stuff?
Anurag Tantia
We will be catering to the entire state of Chhattisgarh as well as Odisha. But our attempt will be to continue the ethos of focusing more on cash and insurance patients and not going for those team patients.
Aman
Okay, got it. That helps. Thanks.
Anurag Tantia
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you very much. Participants, you may press Star and one to ask a question. Next question is from the line of Naman Bansali from nine Divorce Capital. Please go ahead.
Naman Bhansali
Hi sir. Thank you for the opportunity. First question is on the total patient volume. Can you give the number for? 9 month FY2 versus the last year 9 months.
Anurag Tantia
Sure. So thank you for your question. Nama. In terms of our inpatient, in terms of our inpatient volume FY25 we’ve had 23,500 patients compared to 23,100 patients. In the last nine months there has been an increase of around 400 odd patients. 400 odd patients on a total basis.
Naman Bhansali
Got it. Second question is, I mean in the initial calls we used to guide for a growth rate above 15% and a PAT KEGR of around 2025%. So today FY25 seems to be completely flat in terms of growth. So how are we going forward viewing our business from here and where do we see EBITDA margin stabilizing for us?
Anurag Tantia
So we are still steadfast on our estimates of growing at 15% per annum. But this year there were some factors which were beyond our control which impacted the overall productivity of our hospitals. We are concentrated largely in eastern India and there were quite a few factors which were beyond our control which impacted the over productivity factors which include the RG core incident, which include the Bangladesh incident, which include floods in Tripura.
So there were multiple factors which in our geographic area which impacted productivity overall There is enough capacity in our hospitals because we’ve been actively focusing on reducing the length of stay. So bed occupancy perspective is not a problem and we are very confident that we’ll get back to the growth parameters sooner than later.
Naman Bhansali
And lastly given that we are commercializing Raipur in April so how much cost are already loaded up for ripur in maybe Q3 or 9 month? I mean to just understand the profitability on the core business?
Anurag Tantia
This is something we can give you offline. Overall the project cost is around 55 crores and we we are at the juncture of almost closing out inaugurating the hospital soon. We can give you this answer offline.
Naman Bhansali
Sure. That’s it from my.
Operator
Thank you. Naman, do you have any follow up question?
Naman Bhansali
So that’s it from my. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you very much. Participants you may press start and one to ask the question. Next question is from Lanav Risha from Finovet Financial Service. Please go ahead.
Rishabh
Hi, thank you for the opportunity. Just wanted to ask regarding the bed capacity. So the company’s plan is to Double its capacity by 20 FY27. So are you on track to achieve this? While 150 additional bids are expected to be added in the end of this financial year, the next 300 might take a little longer because of Jam Sherpur Mou was recently signed and Ranchi is also facing delays. So given these factors, do you see FY27 target achievable to double its capacity.
Anurag Tantia
Thank you for your query. So we are still steadfast on the thousand bed challenge by FY27 and we have taken significant steps to end up achieving that target. As disclosed earlier, the Raipur hospital will be commencing which will add around 160 odd beds to our already 550 beds taking a total almost 710 beds. The additional 300 beds, the Jamshedpur facility which we are talking about is already an under construction facility.
So that’s a building which is being under constructed. So the time to market for that hospital should be much lesser. We are hopeful of commissioning that hospital by October of 2026. Apart from that, we are also evaluating certain acquisition opportunities for ongoing hospitals which when they click will definitely add to the bed capacity much faster than that.
Rishabh
Can you just tell us more about the acquisition which you are planning to do?
Anurag Tantia
See there are, there are multiple opportunities which do come to us and we evaluate each of them to its merit. We have been evaluating opportunities in Guwahati. There are a couple of opportunities at play even right now in a couple of cities like Bhubaneswar or even Patna. But we are evaluating them. We can disclose them later on once we are at a position of finalization.
Rishabh
Okay. All right, thank you so much. My second question is on the line of revenue growth and margin stability over the next few years. So I think Ripul Hospital is expected to be, you know, put putting pressures on the margin. So once that stabilizes jamshed pull it set to, you know, launch around FY27 probably which will take 15 to 18 months to break even. So according to you, what guidance can you provide for the margin and revenue for the next two, three years?
Anurag Tantia
See definitely in terms of. Yeah, please sir.
Atul Tantia
Yeah. So for the revenue like we said earlier, we expect a 15% kind of CAGRTH over the next two to three years which includes the new hospitals also coming and also existing hospitals productivity improving at the margin level. At EBITDA level we would be around the 22 to 23% mark. Given the size of the existing hospitals and the improvement in productivity there, we should be able to absorb the initial losses from the new hospitals.
Rishabh
All right, I guess that is from my side. Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Operator
Thank you very much. Next question is on the line of Sunil Jain from Nirmal Bank. Please go ahead.
Sunil Jain
Yeah, thank you for this opportunity, sir. Dum dum hospital had seen some year on year revenue decline. Am I correct, sir?
Anurag Tantia
No, that is not the case. There has been no decline in revenue.
Sunil Jain
Because if I calculate based on your capacity utilization in Arpo, that’s.
Operator
Sunil, sorry to interrupt you. Can you speak louder please?
Sunil Jain
Yeah, yeah. So about this utilization of existing hospitals, we are seeing more of a stagnant or bit declining when you expect them to improve. Any specific hospital, if you can talk about.
Anurag Tantia
Sure. So if you see that in terms of our volumes we have not decreased in our volumes at any hospital. Volumes have been increasing at every hospital. You are seeing a decline in the occupancy level. Because of our focus on reduction of length of stay, we have adopted various technologies, digital and otherwise to help reduce our length of stay at the hospitals so that more beds open up for more admissions. This is something we have been successful at. Our Dum dum length of stay has gone down from 5.4 days to 4.5 days in the past one year.
And therefore we have more beds available to take on new patients. We are in the process of mobilizing new patients and opening up those beds for more occupancy. At this point there has been no decrease in the number of inpatients. In fact that has increased across all our hospitals. Our number of inpatients has increased. But because of the overall decrease in the length of stay which is a conscious effort by the management, we may be seeing overall dip in the occupancy percentage.
Sunil Jain
So this length of stay which you are intentionally bringing it down. So is there any more scope in any of the hospital or they had come off to the level where you were expecting?
Anurag Tantia
It has more or less come to the level we were expecting. Dum dum. We are looking at another maybe 0.25 reduction in the length of stay. But apart from that we are very comfortable with the current length of stay patterns across all hospitals.
Sunil Jain
Okay. And RPOB increase anything you are targeting for coming period.
Anurag Tantia
The RPOB has increased at a healthy rate across all our hospitals. We are looking at stabilizing the RPOB increase in the next two around the 7, 8% park on a annual basis. This will be through newer treatments and through the rate differentiation of the insurance companies.
Sunil Jain
Yes sir. A small request this ALOS data for the individual hospital. If you can share in the presentation itself, that will be great.
Anurag Tantia
Sure. Okay. Thank.
Operator
Thank you very much. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from the line of Anuj Kashyap from A3 Capital. Please go ahead.
Anuj Kashyap
Hello, I’m audible.
Operator
Yes, please go ahead.
Anuj Kashyap
So this year budget the finance minister announced that the central government is actively looking.
Anurag Tantia
I’m sorry, your voice is muffled.
Anuj Kashyap
So this year budget. Sir, I’m audible now.
Anurag Tantia
Yes.
Anuj Kashyap
This year budget the central government has announced that they will actively consider to make a strategy to for the medical tourism that the visa’s request will be proceeded fast. So is there any strategy from our side that we are on not only Bangladesh but other countries as a whole is or ILS hospital is actually looking to improve its medical tourism. Is there any strategy from our side?
Anurag Tantia
See we are largely based in the eastern part of the country with very close proximity. Proximity to Bangladesh definitely. Bangladesh has been a focus area for us from a medical tourism perspective. Apart from that it has always been historically very difficult for us to attract patients from the western part of the world. Western part generally flows into central India to Delhi etc.
They generally don’t come to the eastern part of the country. For us, our focus area has always been Bangladesh. We will continue to focus on Bangladesh with the addition of also increasing our focus to areas like Bhutan. Bhutan has also seen a increase in the number of medical tourists coming to Calcutta and that is one area we will be focusing on.
Anuj Kashyap
Bhutan and Nepal. Nepal also has good connectivity.
Anurag Tantia
Nepal has better connectivity with Delhi and other places that does not have a very good connectivity with Calcutta.
Anuj Kashyap
And sir, the other question I want to know is Yesterday there was a news article regarding the accreditation of hospital by the cons by the Quality Council of India. So sir, is there any update on it?
Anurag Tantia
We would appreciate something like this to come on board. It would add value to the already quality care being given by us. We feel what we are offering is at a very superior level and it would perhaps add value to the overall assessment of healthcare quality across the country.
Anuj Kashyap
Thank you. So that is so message. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you very much. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from the line of Aman from Philip Capital. Please go ahead.
Aman
Yeah, thank you for the follow up. So if I look at any of previous answer you mentioned that the RPOP growth was majorly due to the robotic surgery. So would you be able to give us a split on what. What percentage of revenue would be from that therapy?
Anurag Tantia
My answer. Robotic surgery was an example. We have undertaken across all our hospitals various focus on complex cases which is increasing the overall rpo. For example in the in solic we are doing robotic GI surgeries. We are also focusing a lot on gastroenterology. Earth space gastroenterology. In Havada we have started robotic surgery for orthopedic robotic surgeries for replacements. So like that we have taken the initiative to start complex treatments across all our hospitals. Tertiary care quarterly care treatments across all hospitals which is overall impacting the rpob.
Aman
Okay, got it. And then secondly would be on the acquisition. So we are of course potentially eyeing expansion in Bhuvaneshwar and Patna. So how are we planning to manage the cash flows? Because we are currently at 70, 80 crores of cash flow run rate. And even if you acquire 200 bed hospital, you are expecting to spend somewhere around 50, 70 crores again per hospital. So how do we plan on managing that cash flow? Because cash on and she does again what 30, 40 crores for the year. Right. So if you could just give us some sense on that. Are we planning to keep on more debt? Because now that we are net debt free, you know any plans of that?
Atul Tantia
We have about 45 crores cash on the balance sheet. And cash flow to EBITDA conversion is also quite decent. Like we said. So obviously debt we will take very judiciously to ensure that our debt numbers are not reach beyond comfort zone. We have enough headroom of debt. Like you said, we are net debt free. So that’s. That’s not going to be a challenge.
Aman
Okay. So are we expecting any equity dilution then.
Atul Tantia
We’re trying to take debt? Right? No equity dilution.
Aman
No, no. I mean if. If not debt, any equity dilution. Otherwise.
Atul Tantia
No, no, no. No plans.
Aman
Okay. Okay. That. That answers my question. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you very much. A reminder to all the participants. You may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from Nanav Raghav from Same financial. Please go ahead.
Raghav
Hi. Am I audible?
Operator
Yes, Please go ahead.
Raghav
Hi. So a quick question from my end. Is there any update on the Ranki facility we had mentioned? I think there was some delay from the government side in the last call.
Anurag Tantia
Yes. Hi Raghav. Thank you for the query. So the Rachi project is still something which is under. We are still awaiting approvals from the government and the developers following up. But as a added. As a. We are still pursuing that project. It is not like we’ve given it up. But as a second safeguard we have onboarded the Jamshedpur project in the state of Chhattisgarh which should be operational by FY26 because it is an already under construction building. We are celebrating the clearances for Rachi and because of the delay we’ve onboarded Jamshed for.
Raghav
Understood. Second question is regarding international patients. So what proportion would international patients be contributing now and last year around the same time? What could be the difference?
Anurag Tantia
So most of our international patient focus is on the Agartala Hospital. Last year around this time almost 10% of our patient volume was from Bangladesh. At this point we are not having any patients from Bangladesh. There has been a severe restriction on the number of medical tourism patients coming in. So at this point we don’t have any international patients from Bangladesh. But last year it was 10% of our Agartala volume.
Raghav
Got it. That’s all from my side. Thank you. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you very much. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from the land of Naman Bhansali from nine Reverse Capital. Please go ahead.
Naman Bhansali
Hello. Am I audible?
Operator
Yes, please go.
Naman Bhansali
Yeah, yeah. Sorry. So I was just asking any update on the Ranchi hospital Because we have not been seeing about it in the last two presentations. So any clarity on the project.
Anurag Tantia
Thank you. So Raghav, I just asked that question in the previous question itself. So the Rachi project is seeing some exceptional delays from the developer. And on account of certain government approvals, we have been awaiting those government approvals for quite some time which the developer is pursuing and trying to get done. We are still hopeful that it should happen soon.
But at the same time, to expand our presence in Jharkhand, we’ve already signed the MoU for the under construction hospital in Jamshedur. And we are going ahead with that plan which should be operational by October 2026. Rachi, we are still pursuing. But because on account of the delay in approvals we have opted for the second project.
Naman Bhansali
Got it. Thank you. Thanks for repeating. There was a network issue on my end.
Operator
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, you may press start and one to ask the question. As there are no further questions, I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Tantia for closing comments.
Anurag Tantia
Thank you for your questions, which I hope we have suitably addressed. In case you have any further queries, please get in touch with us or through our IR advisors. Thank you for your continued support and trust in our company’s vision and capabilities. Together we look forward to achieving new milestones and creating lasting value. Thank you and have a good day ahead. Thank you very much. On behalf of GPD Healthcare, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.