Fortis has just ₹70 cr in banks, in crying need of funds: Munjal
and have the support of the single largest shareholder in Fortis
Track record of forme er owners Malvinder Si ngh and Shivinder Singh does s not worry me, says Chairman, Hero Enterprise WE HAVE b e e n d r iv in g c o n s o l id at io n in t h e pa s t f ew y ea r s a n d y o u c a n ex p ec t t o s e e a l o t mo r e h a p p en in g f r o m u s
NEWDELHI: Fortis Healthcare Ltd had only ₹70 crore in the bank when the Gurgaon-based company last declared its earnings and that forced Sunil Munjal and Anand Burman to set aside the need for due diligence and invest in the company, the Delhi-based businessmen said in a joint interview on Friday.
“There is a crying need right now for the company for liquidity, support. In the last earnings call that they made to the analysts, they said they have only ₹70 crore left in the bank. That is shocking for a company like Fortis. That was one reason why we said we will do without diligence,” Munjal said.
“Second, the issues around this have become so public that there are public investigations going on. Once the investigation report comes out, one would have a reasonable amount of knowledge and information. The rest of it we are prepared to learn after this process is over,” Munjal said.
Late on May 10, the board of Fortis Healthcare approved a binding offer from Sunil Munjal’s Hero Enterprise and Dabur chairman Anand Burman’s family office.
According to the current offer, the Hero-burman consortium will infuse ₹800 crore through a preferential allot- R800
R167
R1,000 R176 ment of equity shares at ₹167 a share.
The group will put in another ₹1,000 crore through warrants at ₹176 per share.
Munjal said the track-record of former owners Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh does not worry him now.
“We actually looked into Fortis twice earlier but both times we had thought about the Daiichi overhang... we thought if we do get in and this Daiichi thing starts reigning down on us, that would not be smart and again diligence was not available at that time. That time there was a lot in the air but now it seems a lot is in the open about what the issues are,” he said.
Burman allayed concern about them not having enough expertise in healthcare.
“We (Dabur India Ltd) have been in the business of healthcare for the last 135 years. I think we bring a lot of outside knowledge to the table about how we could do things better, more efficiently than what exists today,” said Burman, whose family also runs HealthCare at Home, wherein they install intensive care units at homes.
Munjal, on the other hand, has been directly associated with operations of a familyowned hospital in Ludhiana that claims to have 1,700 beds and over 20 specialities.
The two have the support of Yes Bank Ltd’s Rana Kapoor who, with around 15% stake in Fortis, is the single largest shareholder in the healthcare company. MUMBAI: India’s retail sector is set to further consolidate with the Kishore Biyani-led Future Group seeking to cement its pole position through collaborations and partnerships.
The options open to India’s largest listed retailer, with listed retail companies such as Future Retail Ltd, Future Consumer Ltd and Future Lifestyle Fashions Ltd, include pursuing acquisition of an e-commerce platform, potential partnerships and even equity investments for forming a joint venture, said Kishore Biyani, group chief executive officer, Future Group, in a meeting on Friday.
Possible partners include some of the biggest retailers, technology companies and strategic investors, including Amazon.com Inc., the Walmart-flipkart combine, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Chinese firms such as Tencent Holdings Ltd and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, and even Japan’s Softbank Group Corp., as it looks at pursuing growth, Biyani said.
Investment options open to the company also include forming a 51:49 joint venture for its small stores business.
As of March 2018, the company has 832 small stores across the Easyday and Heritage brands, which account for 12% of Future Retail’s revenue.
The company could also look at strategic minority investments in a Future Group hold- ing company with select institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds and family offices. The strategic investor can get 20-49% stake in the holding company and get rights for direct stake in the operating company after a pre-defined period of five to seven years, added Biyani.
“We have been driving consolidation in the past few years and you can expect to see a lot more happening from us,” said Biyani, who did not want to speak on specifics until plans materialized.
Over the past few years, Future Retail has driven consolidation in supermarkets with the acquisition of Hypercity, Nilgiris, Heritage, Sangam Direct, Big Apple and WH Smith. Earlier this week, the sector saw one of India’s largest deals after Walmart paid $16 billion for a 77% stake in Flipkart.
Doug Mcmillon, president and chief executive officer of the world’s largest retailer, had said that India is one of the most attractive retail markets in the world, given its size and growth rate. LONDON: Total trade in goods and services between the UK and India was £18 billion in 2017, a 15% increase from 2016, according to figures released by the Department for International Trade on Thursday.
In 2017, UK exports to India amounted to £6.7 billion (a 14.9% increase from 2016) while UK imports from India were £11.3 billion (a 15.0% increase from 2016). Of all UK exports to India during the year, £4.3 billion (64.5%) were goods and £2.4 billion (35.5%) were services.
The Theresa May government has made increasing trade with India a priority in the post-brexit situation, when the UK is expected to register less trade with the European Union since it will lose access to the European Single Market.
Latest country-rankings show that India was the UK’S 17th largest trading partner (accounting for 1.4% of total UK trade); and the 24th largest export market (accounting for 1.0% of all UK exports).
The top 5 UK services exported to India are travel (28.8% of all UK services exported to India), transportation (19.8%), telecommunications, computer and information services (12.3%), intellectual property (11.0%) and other business services (9.6%).
India’s main exports to the UK are apparel & clothing accessories, power generating machinery & equipment, petroleum, petroleum products & related materials, miscellaneous manufactured articles, textile yarn, fabrics, made up articles, footwear, medicinal & pharmaceutical products, manufactures of metal, road vehicles and other transport equipment.
The main imports from the UK to India are power generating machinery & equipment, nonferrous metals, ferrous ores & metal scrap, general industrial machinery and equipment & machine, transport equipment, beverages, electrical machinery and appliances & electrical parts thereof, professional, scientific and controlling instruments.