KUALA LUMPUR: Metro Healthcare Bhd made an impressive debut on the Leading Entrepreneur Accelerator Platform (LEAP) Market yesterday, opening at 28 sen, a 22% premium to its issue price of 23 sen.

The stock rose as much as 52% in early trade to its intraday high of 35 sen before paring some of its gains to close at 30 sen — seven sen or 30.43% higher than its opening price. A total of 205,000 shares were traded.

At current price, Metro Healthcare's market capitalisation stood at RM60.2 million.

The healthcare group, which specialises in reproductive medicine, obstetrics, and gynaecology, plans to leverage on Malaysia as a booming health tourism destination to further its business growth.

Metro Healthcare is raising gross proceeds RM4.62 million via a private placement to sophisticated investors.

Of the gross proceeds, RM3.42 million will be used for its business expansion to Johor where it will set up a new women’s clinic, and in Melaka where it plans to acquire a new subsidiary SSH Care Sdn Bhd to upgrade SSH’s women’s clinic into a reproductive medicine ambulatory care centre (ACC) for in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) services.

“We chose Melaka because it is a hotspot for tourism. We currently do have international patients from all over the world as we provide full-ranged infertility services including the latest pre-implantation genital screening technique. This means patients would not need to go elsewhere,” said its founder cum executive chairman Dr Tee Swi Peng told reporters after the group’s listing ceremony yesterday.

Citing Australia, Tee said the cost of an IVF cycle here would cost a patient two to four times less, rendering Malaysia a good place for medical tourism.

The ACC project in central Melaka is slated for completion within 20 months, whereas the new women’s clinic in Johor is expected to commence operation by the third quarter of 2019.

“With the new Melaka facility, we expect to increase our capacity by about 300 cycles, from our current combined capacity of 1,000 cycles for two of our IVF centres in Klang and Puchong,” said its managing director Jason Lim Wai Khong.

Metro Healthcare is also unfazed by competition as it rides on its status as among the pioneering companies amid a market that is not yet saturated, thereby allowing it plenty of room for growth.

Lim said the group is also currently working towards getting itself to be a member of the Malaysian Healthcare Travel Council, which will help facilitate its marketing activities to potential foreign patients.

The group has earmarked RM300,00 of its gross proceeds for its marketing and accreditation programme, while the balance of RM900,000 will be provided for listing expenses.

“We are one of the pioneers, especially in reproductive medicines, and given our track record, expertise, and good success rate, we can do well. Based on our existing trend, this year we are expecting a [year-on-year] revenue growth of more than 10%,” said Lim.

The group has three hospitals, three ambulatory care centres, four clinics located in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, and a total of 600 patients with completed cycles, as at last year, said Lim.

Metro Healthcare is controlled by Tee and his spouse Kong Lan Moon, who combined owned a 76.59% stake in the group. Lim, who is the brother-in-law of Tee, has a 0.77% stake.