Fortis' Parkway offer to close on Aug 12

Fortis Healthcare today said its offer to acquire the shares of Parkway Holdings, the Singapore-based company that runs Asia’s largest hospital network, will close on August 12.

In a disclosure to the Singapore Stock Exchange, RHC Healthcare — the joint venture firm promoted by Fortis Healthcare and its founding family — said the company had dispatched the voluntary conditional cash offer document to Parkway shareholders today.

The Fortis promoters, brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, had on July 1 said they were countering a Parkway acquisition bid made by the Malaysian government’s investment firm, Khazanah, with an offer price of S$3.8 (Rs 128). The company will require $2.3 billion (Rs 10,700 crore) to acquire all the Parkway shares it does not own. With 25.37 percent shareholding, Fortis is the largest shareholder, with management control. The offer will be successful if Fortis gets an additional 24.64 percent shares to make it the majority shareholder in Parkway.

Khazanah, which had offered S$3.78 per share for a 51.5 percent stake in Parkway, has extended its partial offer to July 26. Khazanah currently holds 23.32 per cent stake. The Malaysian fund is expected to raise its offer price soon.

Fortis became the largest shareholder in Parkway after it acquired 23.9 per cent in Parkway for S$959 million (Rs 3,000 crore) from US investment firm TPG Holdings in May. The company increased its stake to 25.3 per cent later, through open market purchase of shares.

Parkway Holdings, with a network of 16 hospitals, with more than 3,400 beds, runs hospitals in Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, India and China.

In addition to Fortis and Khazanah, prominent share holders of Parkway are investment firms Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, Newton Investment Management Ltd and Franklin Resources Inc.