Four generations of eye doctors from Chennai build $1.5 billion eye care business
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Mumbai: In 1994, the Agarwal family launched a ₹4 crore initial public offering (IPO) for Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital, with a view towards expanding in Tamil Nadu. Thirty years later, the family is launching a ₹3,027 crore IPO of the holding company next week, which will value both entities at over $1.5 billion ( ₹12,810 crore).
This will make the Agarwal family—that will own over 32% of the business after IPO—one of India’s largest dollar millionaires in eye care with an about $500 million stake. Dr Agarwal's Health Care Limited, under the aegis of chairman Dr Amar Agarwal, is India's largest eye care chain by revenue and number of facilities. The company is launching its IPO on January 29, 2025, which is a mix of a fresh issue of up to ₹300 crore and an offer-for-sale (OFS) of up to 6.78 crore shares, aggregating to ₹3,027.26 crore at the upper band.
Post-listing, the promoters will own about 32.5% stake in the entity. Private equity firms TPG and Temasek will comprise the bulk of the OFS with the Agarwals individually selling small stakes each. The eye care chain, which was started in 1957 with a single hospital in Chennai, by the late Dr Jaiveer Agarwal and his wife Dr Tahira Agarwal, has been expanded by his son and current chairman Dr Amar Agarwal and four grandsons, to about 209 facilities across India and Africa to date.
(Dr Jaiveer's father was also an eye doctor but was not involved in the setting up of the eye care business). The company first listed its subsidiary – Dr Agarwal's Eye Hospital on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in 1994 for expansion in Tamil Nadu. “When we were looking at raising private equity, we wanted to create a structure which will enable them to get an
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