Fortis Healthcare has announced that it will raise Rs 1,000 crore through rights issue for funding its debt repayment and business expansion.

The company said that the proceeds of the right issue would be used primarily for funding projects including the upcoming Medi-City project in Gurgaon, redemption of preference shares, repayment of short-term debt, upgradation of existing facilities and tapping future investment opportunities.

The Hospital Chain also constituted a committee and delegated the necessary powers to the committee to decide about the modalities of right issue.

Speaking on this, Shivinder Singh (Fortis CEO & MD, Fortis Healthcare) said, "We have fine tuned our operating model and are ready for aggressive growth over the next few years. The rights issue will enable us to restructure our balance sheet and set the base for a healthy future. Further, this gives an opportunity to our shareholders to participate and benefit from our growth."

At present, Fortis has 23 hospitals (mostly in Northern states of the country). The company hopes to raise this number to 40 by 2012.