You are raising funds in a very specific sector, which is healthcare. What is the contribution that RH Managers will play in changing the healthcare sector in South Africa?

RH is bringing affordable healthcare. The challenge is that South Africa has good quality healthcare that is expensive and can only be afforded by 16% of the population. The remaining 84% must be content with overcrowded public sector infrastructure. RH Managers offers a different product, taking some of the pressure off the public sector by introducing affordable healthcare and bringing more people to private healthcare at a considerably lower cost. It is a combination of finance, clinical skills, and developing the infrastructure on cheaper platforms.

How are you creating the partnerships that allow you to raise those funds?

The first constraint was capital. We had some support from institutional investors that keeps growing. The second constraint was the know-how to develop the healthcare ecosystem. The challenge is to make hospitals successful. We have been putting the IP to create a network that starts from primary healthcare and goes to Sub-Acute and Acute facilities. That is a system that makes them sustainable. We have had significant support from the market. Our pipeline is close to a billion dollars. Our funds contribute to less than that. We have come up with innovative ways to develop the pipeline and for the next couple of years, we will continue to up the capital allocated to us by proving to the investors that there is a very good business case for cheaper healthcare, which attracts more people into the sector.

How did you convince people to trust your vision? Have you a proven track record?

We started our first hospital in 2010. It took us almost two and a half years to get the funds. We had to go through a lot of denials: “you haven’t done it before”, “why should we do it?” That was before the fund. We did our first hospital alone. We rolled that up to say “now we have done it” and to raise the money to do it holistically. It wasn’t planned, we were advising one hospital and they asked us to do it for a bigger platform because clearly the missing link is the capital and the IP. To develop our own IP, we started our own primary healthcare chain with our own money. We learnt a lot of things, understanding how to build a hospital with the underground healthcare presence. We built a case, demonstrating that we deserved the same chance as everyone else, and it worked. After that, we have been growing, we are now developing 30 sites, we are looking to reach a 5 billion Rand fund and a pipeline of over 1 billion dollars only in South Africa. There is enormous potential outside the country and it will be our adventure for next year. This year we are focusing in creating a stable platform and expand it to the Sub-Saharan Africa.

What type of returns your investors are looking at?

Our growth rate is 18% but we are still young and there is a lot more we can do.

What is the footprint you would like to leave in the next 5 years?

In South Africa, we need to be the dominant black-owned hospital group within the next 3 to 5 years. Within the next 5 to 10 years, we need to be the dominant healthcare group on the African continent. After that, we should look at other emerging markets. Our model has no limits in terms of going to other places, such as China. We are starting a novel modular concept for rural hospitals, which delivers the healthcare 10% cost of the infrastructure. I am sure China would find that very interesting. All you need for a prefabricated hospital is a good phone network – the physician can actually be offsite. We have started looking at telerobotics. The pricing point for healthcare is not what is should be because no one is trying to innovate. We don’t have the luxury of not innovating because we are not that big and we want to do much more.

What kind of investor is your ideal investor?

Investors who want more social return; making the population healthier, supporting the communities allocated to private equity.

Are you planning to launch an IPO in the future?

We should be listed by June this year.