Dr. Lal PathLabs Limited (NSEI:LALPATHLAB) is looking for M&A. During the company?s third quarter of fiscal year 2024 earnings conference call, Dr. Om Prakash Manchanda, Managing Director said that ?No, I agree with you, actually. Our strategy is fairly clear, which is that we want to have market access and that can come through both organic, which is what Tier 3, Tier 4, we keep talking about. When it comes to the organic means in some markets and other markets, it's all M&A, right?

I think last M&A that we did was Suburban 2.5 years back. And our thesis is that, okay, if you do 10 M&As, 3, 4 may not work, but other 4, 5, 6 which will work, we'll take care of the failures. I think last 3 years, the valuations had gone through the roof and expectations of even private players was in line with sort of public market multiples which we can't give.

And I think now with a bit of the smoothening of curve and I can see the numbers of other companies as they are getting declared. My sense is the P&L of many of these companies will come under a bit of a stress. And hopefully, this whole M&A piece should open up, and we are open to doing M&A in those markets where we need?.