Financial services group Avendus is providing Rs 75 crore as structured debt to promoters of the Guwahati-based healthcare provider GNRC, reaffirming the growing confidence of investors in low-cost affordable healthcare.

The financing will be used to buy out existing PE investor Canbank Venture Capital Fund, which pumped money into the hospital venture in 2013.

The transaction is being done by Avendus Finance, the non-banking financial services arm of Avendus Capital, and its debt fund Avendus Structured Credit Fund.

GNRC, promoted by neurologist Dr Nomal Chandra Borah, has pioneered a low-cost healthcare model, which is more OPD-centric, and focuses on prevention. The company, which reported an Rs 165-crore turnover and Rs 32-crore profit in 2017-18, operates a chain of multi-specialty hospitals in Assam and West Bengal, with a capacity of over 1,600 beds.

Dr Borah, the chairman and MD of GNRC, said, “We firmly believe in this new business model of providing affordable healthcare services, and plan to replicate across geographies. Under the low-cost model at two hospitals, emergency and simple investigations are free of cost, while complex and expensive surgeries are subsidised. This ensures quality healthcare services are available to people from lower income group at affordable prices in the northeast region.”