Malaysia’s IHH Healthcare and the Manipal-TPG combine have put in fresh binding bids for cash-strapped healthcare chain Fortis Healthcare, while the Munjal-Burman combine, which had earlier emerged as the preferred suitor for the company, did not confirm its participation.
“IHH wishes to announce that it has, on July 3, 2018, issued a binding offer letter to the board of Fortis, setting out a binding offer which supersedes and replaces the enhanced revised proposal. Legal obligations and agreement between IHH and Fortis will be created only after the board of Fortis approves the preferential allotment,” IHH said in an announcement to the Malaysian stock exchange.
If IHH does not receive any response from Fortis by 5 pm on July 16, the binding offer shall be deemed withdrawn, it stated, but it did not comment on the size of the bid. In May, IHH had offered to buy a stake worth ₹40 billion at ₹175 per share in two stages.
While the initial deadline for submitting of bids was June 14, it was later deferred to June 28 and later again to July 3.
Meanwhile, a consortium of Manipal Health and TPG Capital also submitted their bid but further details were not revealed. On May 14, Manipal Healthcare had offered to buy a stake in Fortis worth ₹21 billion.
The Burman Family Office and Hero Enterprise Investment office neither confirmed nor denied having submitted their bid. Their earlier ₹18-billion offer was selected by the board then. But it later ran into trouble over an internal investigation instituted by Luthra and Luthra Law Offices over the appointment of board of directors as well as alleged misappropriation of company funds through a rollover of inter-corporate deposits.
Also, there was no update on whether Radiant Life Care and KKR had submitted a revised offer yet.
Fresh criteria
As per the fresh criteria put up by the Fortis board on May 29, the potential buyer had to make a minimum investment of ₹1,500 crore into Fortis Healthcare by way of a preferential allotment.