Morgan Stanley buys 1.1 lakh more shares in Parkway

Morgan Stanley today said one of its investment arms, FrontPoint Management, has bought 1.15 lakh additional shares in the Fortis-controlled Singapore hospital chain Parkway at a price of 3.77 Singapore dollars per share.

With this, the total number of shares held by Morgan Stanley in the Singapore-based healthcare provider has gone up to 3.9 lakh shares, the company said in a filing to the Singapore Stock Exchange. Morgan Stanley had acquired 1.1 lakh shares of Parkway at 3.84 Singapore dollars per share last week.

According to available information, FrontPoint has bought Parkway shares at price of 3.77 Singapore dollars a share, which is marginally lower than the counter-offer launched by the Malaysian government-owned investment fund Khazanah's offer price of 3.78 Singapore dollars a share.

Parkway, which is the biggest listed hospital chain in Asia, is now at the centre of a probable bidding war between the Singh Family-promoted Fortis Heathcare and Khazanah. Khazanah and Fortis are the largest stakeholders in Parkway with 23.9 per cent and 25.3 per cent stake, respectively.

Khazanah wants to increase its stake in Parkway to 51.5 per cent from the present 23.9 per cent through its arm Integrated Healthcare Holdings and has launched a partial cash offer of 3.78 Singapore dollars a share, thus triggering a takeover battle with Fortis.

Fortis had in March this year acquired 23.9 per cent stake in Parkway Holdings for $685.3 million (nearly Rs 3,100 crore) from the US investment firm TPG. With the acquisition, Fortis became the largest shareholder of Parkway and wrested management control and Fortis Chairman Malvinder Singh became the chairman of Parkway.