China’s healthcare sector a big draw for private equity investors

Private equity firms and hedge funds are investing heavily into China’s healthcare industry in a bet on the sector’s upbeat growth potential, fund managers told a Hong Kong forum.

Private hospitals and drug makers are among the bright spots for investors focusing on China, where rising income and an ageing population are boosting the demand for quality medical services.

Private hospitals are set to attract large amounts of capital in the coming decade amid an underdeveloped private medical industry and a shortage of doctors, said investment professionals.

“Healthcare has been the single area that probably everyone can foresee globally an enormous amount of capital and investment,” Peter Fuhrman, chairman of China First Capital told the Asia Private Equity Forum in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

China’s population of individuals aged 60 or older is set to rise 90 per cent to 240 million by 2020, according to the World Health Organisation.

Meanwhile, one consequence of the nation’s one-child policy, introduced in 1979 and officially phased out in 2015, is that the burden of caring for ageing parents will put tremendous pressures on the young generations.

The healthcare sector in China will become a US$1 trillion a year business by 2020, according to a report by consulting firm McKinsey & Company.