Apax sells stake in Apollo Hospital for $90 million: source

By Indulal PM

MUMBAI (Reuters) - British private equity firm Apax Partners LLP raised $90.2 million after selling a 4.2 percent stake in Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd , a source with knowledge of the sale told Reuters on Thursday.

Apax, which invested about $100 million for an 11 percent stake in Apollo in 2007, has taken the advantage of rising share prices as the hospital chain's shares surged 52 percent in 2012 and 4.5 percent so far this year.

The private equity firm, which retains a stake of less than 1 percent in Apollo after earlier smaller sales, sold 5.9 million shares at a price of 825 rupees per share on Thursday, said the source, who declined to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media prior to a public announcement.

The transaction comes after Apax sold a 4.8 percent stake in Apollo, the largest Indian hospital chain, earlier this month, raising about $97 million.

Private equity funds have made $823 million worth of exits so far this year through 28 transactions, according to VCCircle, an industry tracker. Open market transactions or selling shares via block sales on stock exchanges made up $523 million of the total value. February alone saw 20 transaction valued at $625.8 million, the data showed.

At 0748 GMT, shares of Apollo were down 0.15 percent to 823.35 rupees, while the BSE Sensex was trading 0.21 percent lower.

(Editing by Rafael Nam and Matt Driskill)