Medcenter, a private medical services provider, has this year earmarked an investment budget worth 9m euros for two new clinics in Bucharest, an imaging centre and two clinics in the country, and is also considering embarking on some international projects by yearend.
The necessary funding will come from the company's own resources and from banks.
"Starting in 1998, Medcenter has been involved in an expansion programme that focused on Bucharest and other major cities. Given the market's rising growth potential, we stepped up the development rate two years ago and started to follow a plan that involves the launch of four medical centres per year, plus blood-taking units, thus annually adding six to eight of our own centres to the network. In 2008, we managed to complete two new medical centres in Bucharest and another two in the country. The expansion programme will continue both in the capital and countrywide, with also the possibility of several international projects," says Florin Balanica, general manager of Medcenter, part of Medicarom group.
Medcenter was one of the few networks to launch its first projects outside the capital, while most preferred to initiate operations in Bucharest.
"At present, we're not interested in taking over an already existing clinic, but we're not ruling this out for the future. From our point of view, the Medcenter brand is quite well known, so it's more important to replicate our business model than buy a market player," explains Balanica.
A centre employs around 30 full-time staff and at least 40 doctors working part time. As regards revenues generated outside Bucharest, Balanica says they are higher than Bucharest ones. "(...) Overall, investments to launch a Medcenter unit revolve around 1m euros, which is amortised in three to five years," adds Balanica.
Last year, Medcenter started a rebranding process for its clinics and earmarked a 300,000-400,000-euro budget.
Last year, Medcenter generated turnover worth 8.5m euros and targets 12.5m euros for this year.
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