Aster DM Healthcare suspends capex plans amid COVID-19 situation

Health care provider, Aster DM Healthcare made an announcement today about the impact the outbreak of COVID-19 has had on its business. It stated that its regular business operations were substantially impacted due to the nationwide lockdown situation, resulting in an occupancy rate of 52 per cent for GCC hospitals and of 38 per cent for Indian hospitals, for the month of April. However, the company witnessed a rise in the occupancy levels in the month of May.

The company's revenue for April slipped nearly 35 per cent for both GCC and India businesses as against the corresponding month of the previous year. In May, however, while the GCC region maintained the same revenue trend as in April 2020, the Indian region revenue improved by nearly 23 per cent QoQ, but it was still down by about 20 per cent on YoY basis.

This pandemic has caused the company to postpone all its capex plans except for the ones near their completion such as the Sonapur Hospital in Dubai. Higher consumption of PPE kits, masks, gloves, sanitizers, etc. has led to an increase in material costs.

The company also informed that it is servicing its existing debt and that it has adequate unutilised working capital limits to support the operation. The company has requested banks for additional working capital limits, over and above the existing limits to tackle any future contingency.

Aster DM Healthcare's stock in today's trading session was trading on a positive note. The stock which opened at Rs 90.15 apiece, rallied almost about 3 per cent to touch an intraday high of Rs 92.3.