Fortis Healthcare Ltd. said it had received an unsolicited, non-binding indication of interest from Manipal Health Enterprises Private Ltd. for possible transactions with the company.
Stating this, Fortis said that the proposal was still under evaluation by the management. “No firm decision has been taken by the board,'' Fortis said in a filing with the BSE.
The company said that the board had already approved an enabling fund-raising options up to Rs.5,000 crore, including but not limited to qualified institutional placement, foreign currency convertible bonds or any other method. The proposal, Fortis said, had been approved by the shareholders last September.
Private equity firm TPG, it may be recalled, has been pushing for a while now for a merger between Manipal with Fortis, India’s second-largest hospital chain. Fortis has been in the eye of a storm over its founders' action.
Legal battle
Fortis is under investigation by the market regulator - the Securities and Exchange Board of India - and Ministry of Corporate Affairs for any possible violation of corporate laws after the company announced that the former promoters have taken out Rs. 473 crore out of the company through alleged questionable inter-corporate deposits.
A legal battle between the Japanese drug-maker Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd. and the Singh brothers (promoters of Fortis) is yet proving a major hurdle for selling Fortis as a whole entity. Daiichi had alleged that the Singh brothers had suppressed material information when they sold Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. to the Japanese drug-maker in a $4.6 billion deal in 2008. The Japanese firm has since approached the Delhi High Court for intervention and is blocking the Fortis sale.
Daiichi said that the Singh brothers's bid to get an investor in Fortis Healthcare would dilute assets and hamper its efforts to recover damages from them. A Singapore tribunal had ordered the brothers to pay a sum of Rs. 2,562 crore to Daiichi Sankyo in damages.
