Fortis promoters pledge more shares

Now 46% of Singh family holding in company pledged.

Fortis Healthcare Holdings, the promoter firm that owns majority stake in Fortis Healthcare, pledged 33 million additional shares, around 10 per cent of the 329.59 million shares it owns, on July 9.

The move comes within three weeks of the promoter firm revoking 44.78 million pledged shares of Fortis in two tranches, on June 22 and July 7.

The percentage of the total outstanding promoter shares that remain pledged is 46.43, up from 36.42 on July 7, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange today. In other words, of the 76.32 per cent stake owned by the promoter group, 46.43 per cent or 15.3 million shares remain pledged.

While Fortis refused to comment on the reason for pledging shares, it comes at a time when the Singh family-promoted entity is engaged in a battle with Khazanah Nasional Berhad, the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, for control of Parkway Holdings, the largest hospital chain in Asia.

Ranjit Kapadia, vice-president at brokerage firm HDFC Securities, said the promoters would have raised close to Rs 350 crore by pledging these shares for raising funds for the Parkway bid. Fortis, owned by the Singh brothers, Malvinder and Shivinder, currently enjoys management control over Parkway, through a 25.3 per cent stake.

Fortis and its promoters had made a joint offer to pay up to $2.3 billion (Rs 11,000 crore) to acquire all the shares in Parkway, in response to a partial offer launched by Khazanah in May. The company is also known to have lined up its bankers to fund the takeover proceedings.

Fortis’ shares on BSE closed at Rs 151.25, down 0.6 per cent from the previous close.