The hospital and diagnostic services provider's consolidated profit before tax for the quarter ended Sept. 30 stood at 3.66 billion rupees ($43.99 million) compared with 2.65 billion rupees a year ago.

Max Healthcare's average revenue per occupied bed (ARPOB) was 74,600 rupees in the second-quarter, up 13% year-on-year.

KEY CONTEXT

Max Healthcare is the first to report the September-quarter results among its peer hospital chains, with Fortis Healthcare, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise and Aster DM Healthcare due to announce results in the coming days this week.

Analysts had expected higher occupancy and growth in average revenue per occupied bed for Max Healthcare. The improvement in these operating parameters would also help towards capital allocation for bed capacity expansion, per analysts.

PEER COMPARISON

Valuation (next Estimates (next 12 Analysts' sentiment

12 months) months)

RIC PE EV/EBITD Revenue Profit Mean # of Stock to

A growth growth rating* analysts price

target**

Max Healthcare 41.05 27.41 25.33 14.03 Buy 14 0.94

Institute Ltd

Fortis Healthcare 34.04 18.55 11.51 24.31 Buy 12 0.87

Ltd

Apollo Hospitals 53.62 26.22 16.91 39.16 Buy 21 0.93

Enterprise Ltd

Aster DM Healthcare 24.86 10.94 11.41 71.93 Buy 6 1.06

Ltd

* Mean of analysts' ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell

** Ratio of the stock's last close to analysts' mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT

JULY-SEPT STOCK PERFORMANCE

-- All data from LSEG

-- $1 = 83.1927 Indian rupees

(Reporting by Anisha Ajith in Bengaluru)