Private equity’s appetite for Indian healthcare is insatiable. The margins, the demand, the arbitrage. But there just aren’t many hospital chains left that are profitable, mid-sized, and still up for sale. Sahyadri is one of them. And PE has noticed.

Sahyadri is one of the largest private hospital groups in Maharashtra. And its current owner, the Canadian pension fund, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, has reportedly put it on the block. This has attracted a clutch of very eager and deep-pocketed national healthcare operators—the likes of Fortis Healthcare, run by the Malaysia-based IHH Healthcare, Manipal Health, backed by PE firm Temasek, and Blackstone-backed Quality Care. All of them are said to have put in bids, valuingMoneycontrolEQT, Blackstone backed Quality Care, Manipal Hospitals, IHH submit binding bids for OTPP owned Sahyadri Hospitals the chain at Rs 5,500–6,000 crore ($640–700 million).

Not a small figure for a healthcare group that’s largely operating out of one city: Pune. But that’s how desperate these large hospital chains are to increase their footprint and, presumably, their valuation.

For instance, Quality Care—the group headquartered out of Hyderabad and operating under the brand names Care Hospital, KIMS, and Evercare—merged with private hospital network Aster DM in late 2024. Together, the entity—one of the top threeCrisil RatingsRating Rationale: Quality Care India hospital chains in the country now—has over 10,000 beds across five states.

Fortis, too, operates nearly 4,500 beds across 28 healthcare facilities.

The IPO-bound Manipal, meanwhile, has been on an acquisition spree. In fact, the healthcare chain was responsible for three of the top five largest M&A deals in the Indian hospital space in the last five years, according to market-information platform Venture Intelligence.

And who’s fuelling it all? Private equity. Temasek and TPG pumped in $2.4 billion into Manipal in 2023 alone. Today, the latter has over 10,500 operating beds in as many as 37 multi-speciality hospitals, per a Crisil report. TPG is also an investor in Quality Care.

The one who wins Sahyadri stands to gain access to over 1,300 more beds. That’s at least 10% more beds for Quality Care and Manipal, and at least 25% more for Fortis.