IHH’S MANDATORY OPEN OFFER FOR REMAINING 26 PCT STAKE IN FORTIS HALTED

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 18 (Bernama) -- IHH Healthcare Bhd’s mandatory open offer for the remaining 26 per cent stake in Fortis Healthcare Ltd, India’s second largest hospital network, has been halted.

IHH said the Supreme Court of India had passed an order directing “status quo with regard to the sale of the controlling stake in Fortis Healthcare to Malaysia’s IHH Healthcare Bhd be maintained”.

“As a result, our indirect wholly-owned subsidiary, Northern TK Venture (NTK), will not be able to proceed with an open offer for Fortis until further orders, clarifications or directions are issued by either or both of the Indian Supreme Court and the Securities and Exchange Board of India,” it said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia today.

However, IHH said the order did not impact the share subscription completed on Nov 13, which gave IHH a 31.1 per cent stake in Fortis through NTK.

Fortis was at the centre of a bidding war between IHH and three other bidders, including TPG-backed Manipal Health Entreprises Pvt Ltd,  KKR-backed Radiant Life Care Pvt Ltd and the consortium of Hero Enterprise Investment Office and the Burman Family Office, after its creditors called for an open bid for its shares.

After IHH was announced as the winner of the bid in July this year, Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo Co had approached the Delhi High Court to block the sales.

Daiichi alleged that Fortis’s former promoters, brothers Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh, were in violation of their undertaking to the court that they had sufficient encumbered assets to satisfy an arbitration award given to it in relation to the Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd acquisition in 2008, which involved them both.

-- BERNAMA