JULY 9, 2025 will always remain special for Ranjan Pai, chairman, Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG). On that day, Manipal Health Enterprises Pvt. Ltd, the hospital chain founded and promoted by Pai and his family, and majority owned by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek, announced the acquisition of Pune-based, 11-hospital network, Sahyadri Hospitals. The deal took Manipal’s total hospital count to 49, and the total bed count to around 12,000, making it India’s largest private hospital network by bed strength.

“It is a proud moment for us to have grown over time from a single hospital in Bengaluru in 1991, into one of the largest hospital networks,” Pai said the next day. He and his family now hold 30% stake in Manipal Health Enterprises, and ranks 94th with a wealth of ₹25,899 crore ($3.02 billion) as of June 30, 2025, according to the 2025 Fortune India-Waterfield Advisors study of India’s Top 100 Billionaires.

This was not Pai’s first attempt to acquire a hospital chain to help catapult Manipal hospitals into the top league. Seven years ago, when Fortis Healthcare, then India’s second-largest hospital network, was up for grabs, Pai made an unsuccessful bid to acquire it. However, Malaysia’s largest private healthcare group, IHH Healthcare Berhad, bagged the deal. In fact, IHH Healthcare-owned Fortis was also reportedly in the race for Sahyadri Hospitals, too, but was defeated by the combined strength of Pai and Temasek.

“Over the last three decades, [Dr] Ranjan Pai has led the transformation of Manipal hospitals from a small conservative south Indian hospital chain into one of India’s largest hospital networks. As a founder, leader, and investor, Ranjan has played each role with sharp acumen, and is certainly among India’s leading business builders,” says Vishal Bali, a veteran healthcare industry leader, who has known Pai for decades. Bali is currently executive chairman at Asia Healthcare Holdings, an investment platform focussed on single specialty hospitals.

Buyout binge

In 2021, Manipal Health Enterprises acquired Columbia Asia for ₹2,100 crore, adding 11 hospitals to its network. In 2023, the acquisition of Kolkata-based AMRI Hospitals brought four more hospitals under its fold. The expansion continued in 2024 with the addition of a couple more hospitals in east India through the acquisition of another Kolkata-based chain, Medica Synergie. In between, Manipal lapped up Vikram Hospital, a high-end tertiary care facility with more than 250 beds, in the former’s home turf, Karnataka.

Overall, pre-Sahyadri, Manipal had created a pan-India footprint of 38 hospitals across 19 cities with over 10,500 beds, and a pool of 7,200 doctors and over 20,500 employees. In fact, it was already within sniffing distance of market leader Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd in terms of cumulative bed strength when the Sahyadri deal happened.

What makes Pai’s entrepreneurial journey extraordinary is the manner in which he triggered the growth of Manipal Health Enterprises by giving up majority control to Temasek in 2023 — a call most family-owned businesses will find difficult to take. The transaction saw Pai and his family dilute their 50%-plus stake to 30%, and Temasek becoming a majority shareholder with 59%. Today, Pai represents MEMG on the Manipal Health Enterprises board, chaired by medical professional Dr H. Sudarshan Ballal.

“By diluting his controlling stake and giving majority to a private equity (PE) partner, Ranjan has joined a select group of successful founders who strongly believe in the spirit of partnership and timing for value creation for self and the enterprise. By continuing as a significant minority shareholder, founders like him not only unlock the potential of their enterprises, but also unveil a strong conviction to continue to thrive in the hands of their PE partners,” says Bali.

Pai is the third-generation scion of the family that pioneered private, self-financed medical education in the country. Kasturba Medical College (KMC) established by Tonse Madhava Ananth Pai in Manipal in 1953 was the first education institution of the group. A medical graduate from the same college, Ranjan Pai completed his fellowship in hospital administration in the U.S. before joining the businesses and non-profit activities of the family. In 2000, he set up MEMG as the holding entity for ventures across healthcare, education, health insurance, research, and private investments of the group. The restructuring was in line with the global business environment, to meet, anticipate, and take on challenges. Pai got professionals at the management level, and took both education and healthcare businesses to new highs, attracting PE capital in the process. It was under his leadership that MEMG started ‘Stempeutics’, a stem cell therapeutics company involved in developing therapeutics from both embryonic and adult stem cells. His vision of providing affordable healthcare also led him to partner with U.S.-based Cigna Healthcare to form ManipalCigna Sarvah Health Insurance.

Pai’s role as an investor is also significant. His MEMG Family Office has invested in 10 companies, as of June 2024, according to Tracxn database.

“He has a keen eye for opportunities and an astute financial skill for enterprise creation, evident in the multiple verticals that MEMG is building — capitalising on the legacy of the Manipal brand in medical education. Companies supported by his family investment office, Claypond Capital, are indexed on technology-led enterprises, squarely where the next generation of businesses reside,” Bali notes.

Manipal is also a well-known education brand in India and abroad. Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) ranks among the top 10 multi-disciplinary universities in India. The group also runs Manipal University (Rajasthan), Manipal TATA Medical College (Jamshedpur, Jharkhand) and Sikkim Manipal University. It is also present in Malaysia (Melaka Manipal Medical College), the U.A.E. (MAHE, Dubai), and in the U.S. through the American University of Antigua. Manipal Global Education was another initiative of the group to go beyond medical education and train banking and financial services professionals. In 2020, Pai also set up UNext, a next-gen online learning platform focussed on higher education.

The man who believes in the power of entrepreneurship to spur innovation, alleviate people’s lives and transform society is going steady, and headed for a long journey of growth ahead.