Why the abrupt departure of Raffles Medical's CEO won't hurt too much

Thanks to a strong management team.

According to Maybank Kim Eng, both the new Holland Village specialist centre and Raffles Hospital extension are expected to be complete by 2016. In the meantime, there is headroom for organic growth to continue.

Management concurs with our view that Singapore’s Budget 2014 is positive for private healthcare players, citing the Community Healthcare Assist Scheme (CHAS) as an example.

Here's more from Maybank Kim Eng:

In China, discussions with its JV partners remain constructive, with the MOUs extended to Jun 2014.

Management is excited by the scalability of this business, given the growing affluent population.

Raffles Medical’s 4Q13 revenue was slightly weaker than expected (+6% YoY), but this is likely to be transitionary as patient visitorship becomes more evenly spread out through the year.

We expect growth to be higher from here. While the abrupt and untimely departure of its CFO is a concern, we believe the impact will be mitigated by the company’s improved ability to attract talent, not to mention the strong management team now in place.