International Finance Corporation plans to provide a $2.75 million loan (about Rs 18 crore) to healthcare entrepreneur GSK Velu’s new medical technology company in Africa, the World Bank’s private-sector investment arm said.
The loan will complement the $7.25 million of equity that Velu’s Trivitron Healthcare Pvt. Ltd and private equity investor Investment Funds for Health in Africa (IFHA) are injecting into Trivitron Healthcare Africa BV, IFC said in a disclosure.
IFHA and Star Trivitron FZ LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Chennai-based medical equipment distributor Trivitron Healthcare, had tied up in January to form Trivitron Healthcare Africa.
IFHA invests in small and medium enterprises in the private healthcare sector in Africa. Trivitron makes and distributes medical equipment. It has nine manufacturing facilities in India, Finland and Turkey.
Trivitron Healthcare Africa will provide medical devices and instruments as well as after-sales service support across Africa. This will improving access and affordability of medical equipment across the continent, IFC said.
In its first phase of operations, Trivitron Healthcare Africa will focus on four major hubs: Nairobi, Kenya; Johannesburg, South Africa; Lagos, Nigeria; and Algiers, Algeria. It will use these hubs to support neighbouring countries and manage an extensive channel partner network across the African continent.
Velu founded Trivitron Healthcare in 1997. He was also previously associated with Metropolis Healthcare Ltd but sold his stake in late 2015 after a boardroom struggle with the pathology chain’s Shah family. He then launched private equity firm Stakeboat Capital in 2016 with a target corpus of $100 million. Stakeboat marked the first close of its debut mid-market fund in January.