IHH Healthcare, an Asian private hospital operator, is exploring acquisitions in new regions such as Indonesia and Vietnam, according to its CEO. It also intends to grow in markets where it already has a presence, such as India and Turkey, as well as to turn around underperforming assets in China.

"There are some very good healthcare markets like Indonesia, Vietnam is another," Prem Kumar Nair told Reuters in his first public interview since becoming CEO of IHH Group in October. "I look at it from the perspective of where some of our international patients are coming from." "These are very strong markets for us," Nair, a physician and healthcare executive with more than three decades of expertise in the industry, noted. IHH is currently reconsidering its strategy for China, where its activities are already losing money.

"Because China is such a large market, I believe we must play the long game." There will be ups and downs, but we must persevere," he remarked. He said that IHH anticipated long-term prospects in China, the world's second most populous country, as its population became more affluent and demand for private healthcare increased.

Nair also stated that IHH intends to grow organically by adding 4,000 new beds in Malaysia, India, Hong Kong, Turkey, and Europe during the next five years. Currently, the company has around 12,000 beds.

IHH, which has been listed in both Singapore and Malaysia since 2012, has operations in ten countries, with 83 hospitals and over 65,000 employees, according to its website. According to LSEG data, it had a market worth of around $11 billion as of Friday, making it the fourth-largest among healthcare companies in Asia Pacific excluding Japan.

Its third-quarter net profit more than quadrupled from a year ago to 532.1 million ringgit, owing primarily to increased patient volumes. However, competition in the sector is heating up, and corporations and investors are snapping up healthcare assets, betting on rising demand and the sector's capacity to weather rough economic times.

Columbia Asia, a Southeast Asian-focused healthcare company financed by alternative asset manager TPG, purchased Ramsay Sime Darby Health Care in November for 5.7 billion ringgit.

Thomson Medical of Singapore agreed to buy Far East Medical Vietnam from healthcare buyout group Quadria Capital for $381 million in July. "We are happy that there's competition because it just shows that we are in the right healthcare market. We will not overpay for assets. We will pay what is fair, accretive, and consistent with our expansion strategy," Nair said in a statement.