1. At a Glance
Global Health Ltd, better known to the stock market as Medanta, is having one of those “everything is happening at once” phases. ₹29,408 Cr market cap, stock price hovering around ₹1,094, down ~21% in six months, while operationally the company is sprinting like a resident doctor on a 36-hour shift. Q3 FY26 revenue clocked in at ₹1,121 Cr (YoY +18.8%), PAT ₹95 Cr (YoY -13.2%), average occupancy at 63.4%, ARPOB at a chunky ₹66,055, and 3,435 installed beds already sweating for returns.
On paper, ROCE is 19.7%, ROE 16.5%, debt to equity a civilised 0.25. On the ground, Medanta is opening hospitals like a real estate developer on Red Bull—Noida, Ranchi, Patna expansion, Mumbai mega project, South Delhi, Pitampura, Guwahati. The market, meanwhile, is asking just one question: Boss, capex toh sexy hai, but paisa kab banega?
Stick around. This is not a boring hospital story. This is a high-stakes ICU drama with valuation multiples watching from the gallery.
2. Introduction
Hospitals are supposed to be boring businesses. Beds, doctors, patients, cash flows that look like annuity streams, and valuations that quietly compound. Medanta didn’t get that memo.
Global Health Ltd is behaving like a startup with a balance sheet. In the last few years, it has transitioned from a single-flagship Gurugram hospital into a pan-North and East India tertiary care platform. And now, it’s flirting aggressively with West India too.
But here’s the fun part. The stock market already knows Medanta is good. That’s why it trades at ~52x trailing earnings and ~29x EV/EBITDA. So the game is no longer “Is this a good hospital chain?” The game is:
Can Medanta execute a ₹4,122 Cr capex plan without blowing ROCE, margins, or investor patience?
Q3 FY26 gave us a trailer. Revenue growth strong. Occupancy improving. But
PAT dipped thanks to Noida bleeding EBITDA, labour cost exceptional charges, and depreciation kicking harder as new hospitals come online.
So are we watching a temporary digestion phase… or the start of margin indigestion? Let’s scrub in.
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
Medanta runs tertiary and quaternary care hospitals. Translation for non-medical investors: they handle the expensive stuff. Heart surgeries, organ transplants, oncology, neuro procedures—procedures where ARPOB is high and doctors are basically celebrities.
The model is simple but brutal to execute:
- Build large hospitals (300–750 beds)
- Load them with high-end equipment
- Hire top doctors (and pray they don’t leave)
- Ramp occupancy slowly over 3–5 years
- Print cash once maturity hits
Revenue streams come from:
- In-patient services (the real money)
- Out-patient services (volume + referrals)
- International patients (7% of Q2 FY26 revenue)
- Diagnostics and procedures
Specialty mix matters. Heart (21%), Cancer (14.5%), Digestive (12%), Neuro (11%)—these aren’t cough-and-cold clinics. These are “insurance company crying softly” procedures.
But here’s the catch. Every new hospital is loss-making initially. Doctors need time. Brand needs time. Occupancy needs time. EBITDA bleeds early, and depreciation doesn’t wait politely.
So Medanta is playing the long game. Investors just need the patience of a
