IHH extends validity of its 'Enhanced Revised offer' for Fortis till June 30

Mumbai, May 25 (IANS) Fortis Healthcare (FHL) on Friday said that Malaysia's IHH Healthcare Berhad has extended the validity of its "Enhanced Revised Offer" to invest in the company.

As per a BSE filing, FHL said that its Board has received a letter from IHH for extending the acceptance period for its offer to June 30 from the earlier date of May 29. IHH has proposed to invest directly into the company at Rs 175 per share cost.

"In order to enable the reconstituted Board to fully consider and evaluate our proposal, we now extend the acceptance period of the enhanced revised IHH proposal..." IHH Healthcare Berhad's Managing Director and Group CEO Tan See Leng said in the letter to the Fortis Board.

The development comes just after a consortium of Manipal-TPG had extended the validity of its "modified" new offer till June 6 from the earlier date of May 29. 

"We understand that the FHL board is still in the process of considering the modified new offer... in order to provide FHL board with sufficient time to consider our modified new offer, we propose to extend the validity of our modified new offer...," the Manipal Global Health Services said in a letter to the company's Board.

On May 14, the Manipal-TPG consortium had received the "modified" new offer which proposed to values the company at Rs 9,403 crore at a share price of Rs 180 per share.

However, the company's Board on May 10 decided to recommend the offer of the Munjal-Burman consortium for sale of its business to the shareholders for their approval.

Fortis' board had received offers from suitors such as Hero Enterprise Investment Office, Burman Family Office, Fosun Health Holdings, Malaysia's IHH Healthcare Berhad, Manipal Hospital Enterprises and Radiant Life Care for infusion of funds. 

In addition, the validity extension of IHH's offer comes as the healthcare major's shareholders voted Director Brian W. Tempest out from the company's Board at the Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) held on Tuesday. The EGM had sought shareholders approval on a resolution filed by a minority shareholders' group to induct and remove certain Board members among other clearances.

The resolution had sought shareholders approval to replace Tempest, Non-Executive Director Harpal Singh, and Non-Executive Independent Directors Sabina Vaisoha and Tejinder Singh Shergill from the Board.

Harpal Singh, Shergill, and Vaisoha resigned on Sunday citing personal reasons.