Hemas looking for Wattala Hospital investors

Hemas Holdings Ltd (HHL), which sold off its 25 percent stake in eChannelling last week, is negotiating with some new investors for its Wattala Hospital project and hoping to finalise it this month, the company CEO said.

“We are in the process of finalising some people for investing in the Wattala Hospital and carrying out a few discussions with them,” Hussein Esufally, CEO HHL told The Sunday Times FT adding that the new investor will have a limited stake.

He declined to comment on whether the deal in which Hemas had requested Amana Takaful to arrange placements from three major institutional lenders had failed. Market sources say that HHL has also shown the investment plans to some insurance firms. “This has been shown to some smaller firms such as Union Assurance and Carson Cumberbatch,” a stock market analyst said.

The company has announced a joint venture agreement with Malaysia’s Columbia Asia to set up a 100-bed hospital in Wattala with construction to commence later this year and commercial operations starting in mid-2008.

Esufally said HHL got a good offer to sell its eChannelling stake, in which a major shareholder is business tycoon Harry Jayawardena through Sri Lanka Insurance (19 percent) and DFCC (6.3 percent) – both of which he controls.