Fortis files complaint against Khazanah at SIC

Fortis Healthcare today approached market watchdog Securities Industry Council (SIC) alleging misleading of Parkway shareholders by Khazanah through claims that majority of them had voted in favour of the Malaysian fund’s partial offer.

A letter to SIC by Fortis’ legal representatives said the press release issued yesterday by Integrated Healthcare Holdings (IHHL), an arm of Khazanah, called into question the purpose and intention behind it.

IHHL said it had received the approval of majority of eligible shareholders — who had so far voted on its partial offer — of the Singapore-based hospital chain, Parkway.

“This calls into question the purpose and intention behind the IHHL announcement ... whether the intention is to put a positive spin and mislead shareholders into thinking that shareholders support the partial offer,” said the joint letter by Stamford Law Corporation and Rajah & Tann LLP on behalf of Fortis. It added IHHL’s statement gave an impression that the development was a positive one for IHHL, when in reality both conditions to the partial offer remained unsatisfied.

“The majority obtained at that point in time was a slim 0.5 per cent, with a significant portion (30 per cent) eligible shareholders yet to vote,” it said. Moreover, IHHL did not even indicate how many shareholders voted for the partial offer before Fortis’ open offer on July 1.

“A significant portion of the votes might have been cast before” the open offer, it said.

“This could mislead the market into thinking that the majority of the Parkaway shareholders had cast their votes in favour of the partial offer even when there was a competing (Fortis) offer,” the letter said.

It also pointed out that after the press release by IHHL yesterday, there was no requirement under the Singapore code of takeovers and mergers for IHHL to make the announcement.

Claiming that the announcement by IHHL affected trading of Parkway shares, the letter said the volume of trading Parkway shares increased considerably, closing at 1.823 million shares traded for the day. Fortis asked SIC to ask IHHL to clarify and issue a public statement.