Hospital chains plan 18,000 more beds. The reports flag approvals as the slow part.

The demand signal

EY-Parthenon's update for the second quarter of FY26, July to September 2025, counted more than Rs 10,000 crore of announced healthcare transactions across hospitals, diagnostics and specialty care. Revenue per occupied bed at leading hospital networks rose 10% to 16% year on year, which EY puts down to pricing discipline and a shift to higher-acuity work. EV/EBITDA for leading listed players ranged from the mid-teens to more than 30 times. (1)

Leading hospital chains plan to add more than 18,000 beds over the next three to five years, through a mix of new projects and selective acquisitions. (1)

The gap is large and the pipeline is small

Grant Thornton Bharat counted 594 healthcare M&A and private equity deals worth more than US$30 billion between 2022 and 2024. Hospitals accounted for US$6.74 billion of M&A, 40% of that category, and US$4.96 billion of PE investment, 38%. (2) High-demand specialties such as oncology, cardiology and mother-and-child care changed hands at 20 to 30 times EBITDA. (2)

The same report puts India's hospital bed deficit at 2.4 million. (3) The director general of the Association of Healthcare Providers India, commenting on the findings, said 60% of hospital beds are in metro cities while 70% of the population lives outside them. (2) Set the 18,000 planned beds against a 2.4 million deficit and the chains' plans are about 0.75% of the gap. That is our arithmetic and it mixes two different bases: a stated pipeline of leading chains and a national deficit estimate. It shows scale, not a forecast.

What the reports say slows a new hospital

Grant Thornton, as reported, says regulatory hurdles, including complex approval processes for new hospitals, continue to slow expansion. (3) The report does not rank the hurdles or time them, and we have not tried to.

What this means for hospital land (our view)

A hospital operator looking at a parcel needs three answers early. Each is a diligence item, not a negotiating point.

• Use. Is a hospital a permitted use on the land, or does the parcel need a change of land use (CLU), the government permission to use land for a purpose other than the one it is classified for? In Haryana, licences for developing land come from the Directorate of Town and Country Planning (DTCP). (4)
• Tenure. Is the lease long enough to match the operator's payback and its lender's requirements, and is the lessor's right to lease documented?
• Time. How long do approvals take on this parcel, and who carries the cost of delay?

The reports above show where capital is going. They do not show how many suitable parcels exist. That is why we treat hospital land with documented use and tenure as a scarce input, though we do not have a count to prove it.

Limits of this note

The Grant Thornton data covers 2022 to 2024 and the EY data covers one quarter. Both are consultants' work, and the 60% and 70% figures are one industry body's statement. This is not investment advice. Disclosure: AIS carries hospital land lease and hospital acquisition mandates and may benefit from interest in this segment.