Deal Retrospective: GIC’s RM750 Million Sunway Healthcare Bet, From 16% Stake to Full Exit

In June 2021, in the middle of Malaysia’s Covid-19 lockdowns, Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC agreed to put RM750 million into Sunway Healthcare Holdings, the hospital arm of Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah’s Sunway Berhad, for a 16% stake. At a valuation of about RM4.69 billion, the price looked rich to many analysts. Five years later, Sunway Healthcare listed on Bursa Malaysia at roughly RM16.7 billion, and by September 2026 GIC had sold every share it owned. This Deal Retrospective looks at what GIC paid, how the deal was structured, what Sunway did with the money, and why the exit matters for anyone valuing Malaysian private healthcare today.

Deal Snapshot

Item	Detail
Announced	23 June 2021
Investor	GIC Pte Ltd, Singapore, via affiliate Greenwood Capital
Target	Sunway Healthcare Holdings Sdn Bhd (now Sunway Healthcare Holdings Bhd, Bursa: SUNMED)
Seller / issuer	Sunway Berhad
Stake	16% on a fully converted basis
Consideration	RM750 million (about US$180 million), drawn in tranches over about three years
Implied valuation	About RM4,688 million (100%)
Sunway’s adviser	Maybank Investment Bank (sole principal adviser)
Exit	Partial sale in March 2026 IPO; final block of ~575 million shares sold 22 September 2026
Status	Completed and fully exited

The company at the centre of the story is Sunway Healthcare, the healthcare division of Sunway Berhad, one of Malaysia’s largest property, construction and services conglomerates. The investor is GIC, which manages Singapore’s foreign reserves alongside Temasek and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

Background: Sunway Healthcare in 2021

When GIC signed, Sunway Healthcare was a much smaller business than the one that listed in 2026. According to GIC’s June 2021 announcement, it operated two tertiary hospitals, Sunway Medical Centre in Sunway City, Selangor, and Sunway Medical Centre Velocity in Kuala Lumpur, with more than 800 beds and over 400 consultant specialists between them. Around those two hospitals sat a cluster of smaller businesses: Sunway Specialist Centre Damansara, a medical centre in Singapore, a traditional and complementary medicine centre, home care, and Sunway Sanctuary, a 500-suite senior living development being built above the Sunway City hospital.

The plan was far bigger than the footprint. Sunway had four new hospitals under development, in Seberang Jaya (Penang), Sunway Damansara (Selangor), Sunway City Ipoh (Perak) and Kota Bharu (Kelantan), and two more in the pipeline at Sunway City Iskandar Puteri (Johor) and Paya Terubong on Penang Island. The stated goal was about 3,000 beds across eight hospitals. That expansion needed roughly RM2 billion of capital expenditure over four to five years, The Star reported, at a time when Sunway’s parent balance sheet was also carrying property and construction projects through a pandemic.

Sunway had a choice: borrow, list the hospital arm early, or sell a minority stake to a patient investor. It chose the third option and ran a competitive process. GIC’s release says the price was reached on a willing-buyer, willing-seller basis after Sunway evaluated proposals from domestic and international investment funds, sovereign wealth funds and private equity firms.

The Deal Terms

Price and valuation

GIC agreed to pay RM750 million for 16% of Sunway Healthcare on a fully converted basis, valuing the business at close to RM4,688 million. Focus Malaysia reported that this worked out to about 31 times 2020 EV/EBITDA, well above the 14 to 19 times at which listed Malaysian hospital operators traded at the time. On an equity-value-per-bed basis the gap was even wider. The premium reflected the fact that GIC was paying for six hospitals that did not yet exist, not just the two that did.

Staged tranches

The money did not arrive in one cheque. According to The Star’s report, republished on Sunway Medical’s newsroom, Sunway could draw down GIC’s investment in tranches as and when it needed the funds, over approximately three years. Focus Malaysia reported full disbursement was expected by the end of 2024. The proceeds were earmarked for building new hospitals, covering about 40% of the RM2 billion capex plan, and for repaying part of Sunway Healthcare’s borrowings. Staging the cash this way kept Sunway from carrying idle money and meant GIC’s capital was deployed only as the hospitals were built.

Return protection and the IPO clock

The most important terms were the ones that protected GIC’s downside. Focus Malaysia, citing a UOB Kay Hian Research note, reported that Sunway agreed to a minimum 12.5% internal rate of return for GIC, including a 3% annual dividend yield, with an initial public offering as the intended exit. If Sunway Healthcare failed to list, the guaranteed return rose to a punitive 18.5%. Sunway itself said at the time that it planned to list the healthcare unit in Malaysia within six to eight years, once the new hospitals had matured. In other words, the deal was priced like equity but behaved partly like structured credit: GIC had a floor, and Sunway had a deadline.

For Sunway, the accounting was attractive. UOB Kay Hian estimated a one-off gain of about RM2.3 billion from revaluing the healthcare business, and projected Sunway’s net gearing would fall from 0.51 to 0.42 times. Sunway’s shares, however, slipped about 2.8% to RM1.73 on the morning after the announcement, Focus Malaysia noted, suggesting the market was less impressed than the analysts.

Why GIC Wanted In

GIC already owned healthcare assets across public and private markets in the United States, Australia, Brazil, the Philippines, China and Vietnam when it signed. Its stated thesis for Malaysia was demographic. Amit Kunal, then GIC’s head of direct investments for Southeast Asia in private equity, pointed to an ageing population, a growing middle class, rising health insurance penetration and the expected recovery of medical tourism once Covid-19 travel restrictions eased. Choo Yong Cheen, GIC’s chief investment officer for private equity, cited Sunway Healthcare’s operating record and its focus on modern medical infrastructure.

There was also a scarcity argument. In 2021, investors wanting direct exposure to Malaysian private hospitals had few options beyond IHH Healthcare and KPJ Healthcare on Bursa, plus a handful of privately held groups. A sizeable minority stake in a fast-growing, founder-controlled operator with a listing commitment was a rare entry point, and GIC was willing to pay a premium multiple for it.

What Happened Next: The 2026 IPO

Sunway kept its side of the bargain, comfortably inside the six-to-eight-year window. Sunway Healthcare Holdings Bhd listed on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia on 18 March 2026 at RM1.45 a share. According to The Edge, the offering raised up to RM2.86 billion and valued the group at about RM16.68 billion, making it Malaysia’s largest IPO in nine years. It comprised a public issue of 575 million new shares, raising about RM833.7 million for the company, and an offer for sale of up to 1.39 billion existing shares by Sunway’s unit SunCity and by Greenwood Capital, GIC’s vehicle, worth about RM2.02 billion to the sellers.

The pricing was demanding. The Edge noted that RM1.45 represented 64.8 times FY2024 net profit, against about 30 times for IHH Healthcare and 37.4 times for KPJ Healthcare. Demand was strong anyway: 20 cornerstone investors, including the Employees Provident Fund and Lembaga Tabung Haji, took 52.6% of the institutional offering, and the public portion was oversubscribed 5.57 times. Fortune reported that the shares closed their first day at RM1.85, up 28%, and that Sunway Bhd kept about 69.4% of the company.

By the time of listing, Sunway Healthcare had grown to 1,805 licensed beds, with hospitals in Subang Jaya, Cheras, Penang, Damansara and Ipoh, and planned new facilities in Seremban, Iskandar Puteri and Putrajaya to take capacity past 3,444 beds by 2032. Earnings have followed: Business Today reported that second-quarter 2026 revenue rose about 30% to RM672.89 million and net profit rose 89% to RM78.16 million, driven by higher patient volumes.

The Exit: GIC Sells Out in September 2026

GIC used the IPO to sell roughly half its holding, cutting its stake from 16% to about 7.5%, The Edge reported. It did not wait long to sell the rest. On 22 September 2026, six months after listing, Greenwood Capital sold about 575 million Sunway Healthcare shares at RM2.08 each, near the bottom of a RM2.07 to RM2.10 marketing range and about 9% below the previous close of RM2.29. The Edge reported, citing Bloomberg, that the block was Greenwood’s entire remaining holding, equal to about 5% of the company, and was worth more than RM1 billion. The shares fell about 5% to RM2.17 that day but were still up roughly 58% from the IPO price.

Speaking at the launch of Sunway Medical Centre Damansara on 1 October 2026, Jeffrey Cheah played down the exit as a matter of fund mandates rather than a verdict on the business. The New Straits Times reported that local institutions including Permodalan Nasional Bhd and the EPF had taken up a significant portion of the shares, and quoted Cheah on GIC’s holding period: “When the time is up, they have to sell.” He also said the group remains on track to build three new hospitals by 2030, led by a roughly 400-bed, RM800 million hospital in Iskandar Puteri, with total capex for the three projects of about RM1.6 billion to RM1.7 billion.

How did GIC do?

Neither GIC nor Sunway has disclosed GIC’s total proceeds, so any return figure is an estimate. On OEMReview’s calculation from the public numbers above, the September block alone returned about RM1.2 billion, already 1.6 times GIC’s entire RM750 million commitment. Adding the shares GIC sold in the IPO offer for sale at RM1.45, which we estimate at well over RM1 billion based on its reported cut from 16% to 7.5%, GIC’s gross proceeds likely exceeded RM2.4 billion, before dividends. That is more than three times the money invested, achieved in a little over five years from signing and less than that from the later tranches. However it is calculated, the deal comfortably beat the 12.5% minimum return written into the 2021 terms.

My Take

My opinion: this is one of the best-structured minority healthcare deals in Malaysia in the past decade, and the credit belongs to both sides. In 2021 a lot of people, me included, would have said 31 times EV/EBITDA for a two-hospital group with six more on drawings was a stretch. It was a stretch. But GIC was not really buying two hospitals. It was buying a funded build-out, a guaranteed floor on returns, and a contractual path to a public listing. With that structure, the headline multiple mattered far less than whether Sunway could execute. It did.

Who won? GIC, clearly. It turned RM750 million into what I estimate is well over RM2.4 billion, and it had downside protection the whole way. Sunway won too, though less obviously. The 12.5% return floor was expensive capital, and selling 16% at RM4.69 billion looks cheap next to a RM16.68 billion IPO valuation. But the money arrived in 2021 to 2024, when hospital construction needed funding and Sunway’s other businesses were absorbing the pandemic. Cheap equity you cannot get is worth less than expensive equity you can. And GIC’s name on the register gave Sunway Healthcare a valuation anchor and an institutional stamp that helped it sell the biggest Malaysian IPO in nine years.

Who lost? Probably no one in 2021 terms. But I would point out who is holding the risk now. GIC sold its last block at RM2.08, a price equal to about 93 times FY2024 earnings on our calculation from the IPO multiple, into local institutions like the EPF and PNB. The smart foreign money that bought at 31 times EV/EBITDA has handed the stock to domestic savers at a far richer price. That does not make SUNMED a bad business. Revenue and profit are growing fast, and Malaysia’s ageing population is real. But valuation still matters, and pending healthcare reforms, including the delayed diagnosis-related group (DRG) payment model and the reimbursement rates private hospitals will be paid, could compress margins.

What does it signal? Three things. First, the template works: staged capital, a return floor, and a fixed IPO window is now a proven way to fund hospital growth in Southeast Asia, and I expect other founder-led groups to copy it. Second, Malaysian private healthcare has been re-rated as an institutional asset class. Thomson Medical’s Johor Bay project, which we covered in our Thomson Medical Group company profile, and the wider wave of hospital deals across the region are part of the same story. Third, sovereign funds will sell when their clock runs out, whatever the founders think of the share price. Anyone investing alongside a private equity-style backer in an ASEAN listing should know when that clock started.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• Sunway Healthcare, official website (sunwaymedical.com); Sunway Berhad, official website (sunway.com.my); GIC, official website (gic.com.sg)
• GIC, GIC invests RM750 million in Sunway Healthcare (press release, 23 Jun 2021)
• The Star via Sunway Medical Centre, Singapore’s GIC invests RM750mil for 16% stake in Sunway Healthcare over three years (Jun 2021)
• Focus Malaysia, Robust valuation lays path for Sunway’s healthcare arm’s eventual IPO (24 Jun 2021)
• The Edge Malaysia, Sunway Healthcare IPO coverage (Mar 2026)
• Fortune, Sunway Healthcare IPO and Malaysia’s private hospitals (19 Mar 2026)
• Business Today, Sunway Healthcare 2Q26 net profit jumps 89% to RM78 million (20 Aug 2026)
• The Edge Malaysia, GIC sells remaining Sunway Healthcare stake (22 Sep 2026)
• New Straits Times, Sunway Healthcare confident after GIC exit (1 Oct 2026)

Disclaimer: This article is for informational and editorial purposes only. It is not a recommendation to buy or sell any securities and does not constitute investment advice.