SINGAPORE (Apr 16): Dr Chin Pak Lin maps out on a memo pad his vision for a comprehensive healthcare services company, much like he would sketch out the hip and leg bones to explain procedures to his patients. Chin, an orthopaedic surgeon, is the founder, executive chairman and CEO of Asian Healthcare Specialists, which has launched an IPO on Catalist. The company is placing out 46.9 million shares to retail and institutional investors at 23 cents each. There will not be a public tranche.
The placement will raise roughly $9.5 million in net proceeds to fund Chin’s dream of expanding the current orthopaedic practice into a musculoskeletal centre, the first in Singapore outside of a hospital system. It will include services ancillary to orthopaedics, such as imaging and therapy.
The urgency to build such a one-stop centre for orthopaedic patients stems from Chin’s contrasting experiences working in a restructured hospital here, where additional services such as scans or therapy were readily available, and in private practice. “I found it painful that I couldn’t practise [the way] I used to when I was at SGH [Singapore General Hospital],” Chin says. Whenever he had a patient who needed a scan or physiotherapy, for instance, he had to “scour around” for a suitable service provider or supporting clinic. “Why should that be the case?”
