COLOMBO: Fortis-group owned SRL Diagnostics is expanding its global footprint as it plans to add laboratories in South Asia, Gulf states and Africa.
SRL Diagnostics earns about 3 percent of its revenue from overseas operations and the company aims to increase it to 8-10 percent in the next five years.
“We recently opened a large laboratory in Congo and have the board mandate to expand in the Gulf region. We have a laboratory in Dubai and in the next six months we will be setting up two laborataries in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah,” said Sanjeev Vashishta, CEO of SRL Diagnostics.
Currently the company has five laborataries in Dubai, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Congo and will add another five overseas labs in next six months. According to Vashishta, the company will use internal accruals for expansion and has no fund raising plans at present.
“Each year we are investing about Rs 50 crore in capital expenditure. We will be generating about Rs 150-160 crore in cash from operations this year. Next year the cash generation will be more. We are a zero debt company and will use internal accruals for expansion,” he said.
Within India the group runs 738 lab units and has over 7,450 collection centres. In FY16, its standalone revenue grew by 8 percent to Rs 898 crore, while its earning before interest tax depreciation and amortisation increased by 25 percent at Rs 182 crore.
Africa has emerged as a big focus area for SRL Diagnostics with experts saying labs with international accreditation and consistent internal quality controls are few in the region.
Tests offered at these units are limited and samples for certain high-end and low volume tests are sent to Europe or South Africa. This is because sending of samples abroad is cheaper than for than importing equipment and kits required for these tests.
