South Asia

• January 2025
• Case

Creating Value by Splitting Aster: Can One Minus One Equal Two?

Aster DM Healthcare (Aster), founded by Dr. Azad Moopen in 1987, is a prominent healthcare conglomerate with operations spanning hospitals, clinics, retail pharmacies, and diagnostic centers across India and the GCC. After its 2018 listing on India’s National Stock Exchange, Aster’s stock stagnated, revealing a market undervaluation of its GCC business. In 2021, Aster initiated a value discovery exercise, leading to the separation of its India and GCC businesses. Aster GCC became a private entity focused on the GCC region, while Aster India remained publicly listed. In 2022, Aster sold a 65% stake in its GCC operations, held by Affinity Holdings, to a consortium led by Fajr Capital for $1 billion. As the transaction neared completion, Aster faced four key negotiation challenges: dividing global markets between the two entities, structuring shared services, accounting for medical value tourism, and pricing access to the GCC-built IT platform.

• January 2025
• Teaching Material

Creating Value By Splitting Aster (B): Can One Minus One Equal Two?

• December 2024
• Case

WayCool: Addressing Food Loss

Headquartered in Chennai, India, WayCool started by focusing on solving the growing challenge of food losses and low farmer incomes. Dasari and Jayaraman, surprised at the amount of fruits and vegetables lost in the agricultural supply chain, set up the company with the goal of reducing food losses and improving farmer incomes. WayCool started with B2C retail, selling fruits and vegetables from food trucks, later expanding to grocery stores under the Sunnybee brand. It then pivoted to a B2B model where it supplied fresh produce to restaurants, hotels, and canteens, allowing it to scale the amount of fresh produce it purchased from the local markets. Soon, WayCool began supplying millions of informal ‘kirana’ shops or mom-and-pop stores, which allowed for greater business expansion. Jayaraman and Dasari were proud of the supply chain the team had created to minimize food losses. Even as the collection center worked efficiently and smoothly, swiftly meeting 98% of demand, the question loomed large: Was WayCool doing enough to solve the food loss problem in perishables? What would it take to minimize losses at a larger scale?