Panel-Maker BOE Ramps Up Move Into Health Care With New Campus

BOE Technology Group Co. Ltd. is moving deeper into the medical sector, with plans to spend at least 13.6 billion yuan ($2 billion) to build a health care campus in Beijing.

Located in the Beijing suburb of Fangshan, the campus will span 700 acres and is slated for first-phase operations in 2022, according to a company filing (link in Chinese) to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Thursday.

The project will consist of new facilities for research and development, medical teaching, hospitals and a collaboration center with global partners.

BOE expects to bring in annual revenue of 47.3 billion yuan from the campus by 2031, it said, compared to 1.7 billion yuan when it begins operations in 2022.

The display-maker stressed the growing importance the sector is playing in its business strategy.

“China’s health care industry has tremendous potential,” BOE said in the filing. “This sector is going to lead economic development and social progress across the world.”

The company announced its ambition to move into health care in 2013, amid an increasingly competitive landscape in the panel industry, where a supply glut has dragged down profitability.

BOE launched a series of aggressive moves in the sector in 2015. It spent 250 million yuan buying a Beijing hospital, at the same time partnering with U.S. medical services group Dignity Health, which offered BOE know-how in running medical facilities.

BOE signed a deal with tech giant IBM the same year to develop big-data computing for health care management, and ploughed 3.2 billion yuan into building a “smart hospital” in East China’s Anhui province.

The panel-maker last year invested $50 million in Israeli medical equipment-maker Cnoga Medical Ltd. for a 24% stake, paving the way for its expansion into medical hardware production.

Contact reporter Jason Tan (jasontan@caixin.com)