IHC opens joint venture medical centre in Wuxi to cater to high-end market

INTERNATIONAL Healthway Corporation (IHC) has opened an International Medical Centre in Wuxi New District, China which aims to capture the high-end market.

The centre will be a "key driver towards revenue growth in the immediate future", said IHC.

The centre is a joint collaboration between the Phoenix Hospital and South Korea's third largest conglomerate SK Group. The hospital - which is owned and managed by IHC - has 165 beds, and recruits over 300 full-time doctors, nurses and other personnel. It will be redeveloped into a hospital with a capacity of more than 1,200 beds.

"With the support of the Wuxi Hospital's resources and infrastructure, the International Medical Centre targets to be the key and exclusive provider of advanced healthcare services, such as the long distance diagnostics services, to the expatriates and locals in Wuxi New District," said IHC.

In a separate announcement on Tuesday, IHC said that certain funds - Enterprise Fund III, Value Monetization III and VMF3 - have appointed receivers over the entire issued share capital of its wholly owned investment holding subsidiaries IHC Medical Re, IHC Management and IHC Management (Australia).

The funds had previously extended certain loan facility arrangements to the company and IHC Medical last year but the total amount outstanding under the loan facility arrangements is being disputed. In the unaudited consolidated financial statements of the group for the FY ended Dec 31, 2015, the outstanding amount under the loan facility arrangements is nearly S$4.12 million.

"The company believes that there are no basis and/or merits to the above claims and shall robustly defend its positions," said IHC, adding that it and IHC Medical have applied to the Supreme Court of Singapore to rescind and/or suspend the appointment of the receivers. In addition, they have applied to the court to enjoin the receivers from selling, transferring and/or disposing any of the shares in the subsidiaries.

Meanwhile, IHC said that the Singapore Exchange has granted a one-month extension for the company to hold its FY15 annual general meeting by May 31 and a six-week extension to release its Q1 2016 results on or before June 26. This is because IHC accounts for its properties on a fair value basis based on independent valuation reports, and is currently finalising the independent valuation reports of its overseas properties.

Addressing the queries of its auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers took longer than anticipated, it added.