Fortis offers to buy entire Parkway holding

MUMBAI - India’s Fortis Healthcare Thursday offered to buy out the entire stake of Singapore’s Parkway Holdings, which operates 16 hospitals in the Asia-Pacific region, topping a bid by rival Malaysian state fund Khazanah.

Fortis Healthcare, promoted by brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, had bought a 24-percent stake in Parkway Holdings for $685.3 million, but has been involved in a battle with Khazanah for control over the hospital chain.

“RHC Healthcare, a company jointly owned by RHC Holding Private Ltd., the holding company of Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivender Mohan Singh, and Fortis Healthcare have announced a voluntary general offer for Parkway Holdings at an offer price of $3.8 per share in cash,” said a statement from Fortis Healthcare.

“The offer represents a 25.8 percent over the closing price on May 26, the day prior to the announcement of the partial offer by Khazanah Nasional Berhad,” the statement added.

Khazanah Nasional Berhad, which owns about 24 percent in Parkway Holdings, had made a partial takeover offer for the company’s shares at Singapore $3.78 per share, in a bid to take its stakes up to 51 percent.

According to a banking industry person who did not want to be named, the fight for Parkway may intensify if Khazanah comes up with a better bid and the Singh brothers might just have to shell out over $2.5 billion to take control of the Singapore-based company.

For the Singh brothers, the deal comes after Fortis acquired 10 hospitals from Wockhardt in India for $180 million and the sale of the family’s 34.8-percent stake in pharmaceuticals major Ranbaxy Laboratories to Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo for $2.4 billion.

At the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Fortis scrip rose 3.3 percent touching the intra-day high of Rs.157.35.