Aster DM Healthcare India Ltd has secured approval from its shareholders and unsecured trade creditors for its amalgamation with Blackstone-backed Quality Care India Ltd more than a year after the deal was announced.
The voting was held on 10 March, and the results were declared on 11 March. The deal was announced in November 2024.
The merger was approved by 96.68% of shareholders and all unsecured creditors, stock exchange notifications from Wednesday showed.
Aster’s deputy managing director Alisha Moopen told Mint that the merger is expected to be completed in the first quarter of fiscal 2027.
Aster and Quality will merge via a share-swap ratio of 977 shares of Aster for every 1,000 shares of QCIL.
Aster shareholders will hold 57.3% and QCIL shareholders 42.7% in the merged entity — Aster DM Quality Care, which will be the new name for current listed entity Aster DM Healthcare.
Blackstone will be the largest shareholder in the merged entity with 30.7% shareholding, followed by Aster’s promoters (the Moopens, 24%). Private equity firm TPG will hold 10.2%, with the balance being held by public and other shareholders.
“The family’s ownership will continue. We will have private equity, and will change at some point or the other. But while they are there with us, the plan is to leverage their strengths and make this an even stronger company,” Moopen said.
“Blackstone coming in will help us with real estate and deal negotiations, aspects like digital health, and let us access global leads and innovations in the healthcare space,” she added.
With the deal completed, Aster DM Quality Care will have a board of 12 directors: three from Blackstone, three from the Moopen family, and six independent directors, Moopen said.
Also on 10 March, the board of Aster DM approved the appointment of its founder, Azad Moopen, as executive director from 15 April 2026, to 28 May 2028.
Azad, Alisha’s father, will continue as chairman of the company. However, this move will require shareholder approval to come into effect.
A new Aster
Once completed — the Aster-Quality merger, the largest in the Indian healthcare space — will establish India’s third-largest hospital operator in terms of total beds, after Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd and Manipal Hospitals, Moopen said.
Aster DM Quality Care would have over 10,625 beds, doubling from Aster DM’s Healthcare’s bed capacity of 5,159 when the deal was announced in November 2024.
“The combined entity will have a capital outlay of around ₹4,000 crore for the next three to five years, which will see us add 4,000 beds. Of this, ₹700-800 crore will be deployed over the next couple of quarters following the merger completion,” she said.
The merged entity will be valued at over $7 billion, or over ₹64,400 crore, Moopen told Mint.
To be sure, when the deal was first announced, the value of the combined entity was at $5.08 billion or around ₹43,000 crore. That value has since gone up as both companies have scaled up their businesses, Moopen explained.
While the capital outlay for greenfield and brownfield expansion has been structured, the company will keep evaluating strategic opportunities for bed acquisitions in its core markets, Moopen explained.
Moopen said that at one point, Aster was also trying to buy Sahyadri Hospitals, in which Manipal ultimately acquired a controlling stake for about $760 million in July 2025.
“Everyone was in the race, but at one point, we decided that the valuation had to make sense. It didn’t make sense to go beyond a certain number,” she said.
The deal will open up new markets for Aster in states like Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu. It already has a strong footprint in Kerala and Karnataka. The merged entity will operate 39 hospitals across 28 cities in nine states.
