Image Plus seeks partner in building new facility
Published:Wednesday | July 17, 2024 | 12:06 AMLuke Douglas/Senior Business Reporter
Medical diagnostic imaging company Image Plus Consultants Limited is seeking a joint venture partner in building out a new facility at 33 Lady Musgrave Road in Kingston but may also turn to the market to fund the project.
CEO Kisha Anderson ruled out debt financing for the new complex to be built on the property located across from the AC Marriott Hotel in New Kingston.
“As a board we don’t think that borrowing would be in the best interest of our shareholders, which leaves us with two options; either a joint venture partnership or coming back to the market”, Anderson said at the company’s annual general meeting in Kingston on Monday.
She said although the design for the new facility was not yet approved, the company hoped to embark on an aggressive schedule to make the new complex a reality by the end of Image Plus’s February 2026 financial year.
The company’s profit for the year ending February 2024 was $224.3 million, down slightly from $252.9 million the previous year. The fall in profit was despite an increase in revenue to $1.19 billion, which is 9.3 per cent up from $1.09 billion the previous year. Earnings per share was 17 cents, down from 23 cents the previous year.
Anderson said the company continued to grow revenue organically by completing more scans and putting more modalities to provide diversified income streams.
Image Plus, which trades as Apex Radiology, completed 59,475 scans in the financial year, up eight per cent from 54,840.
The company put in MRI and mammography facilities at the Ocho Rios branch in St Ann, while mammography facilities were installed at Molynes Road location in Kingston.
It’s other two branches are also in Kingston, at Old Hope Road and Winchester Avenue. The four locations are served by a workforce of 96 employees.
The company was established in February 1996 and was listed on the junior market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange in January 2023. Its services include multiple modalities such as X-ray, ultrasound, multi detector CT fluoroscopy, nuclear medicine, mammography and MRI.
Seeking acquisitions
The report also showed that costs increased by $53.3 million or 14.1 percent over 2023. Anderson noted that this was in part due to the public sector restructuring of compensation, which forced the company “to increase the salaries of all categories of technical staff”.
Going forward, Anderson said Image Plus was actively seeking to acquire competing entities, particularly in parishes where it did not have a presence.
“There are some parishes that we see, given the age of the population and the type of lifestyle diseases that are happening, that we actually belong in those parishes,” she said.
“It would be important to identify somebody (a competitor) that is a growing concern and would add immediate value to us. We believe that that type of inorganic growth will allow us to grow at a faster pace,” Anderson said.