Fifth suitor joins fight for Fortis

bengaluru — The battle for control of India’s Fortis Healthcare intensified after KKRbacked Radiant Life Care Private entered the fray with an offer to buy more than a quarter of the cash-strapped company’s hospital business.

In its non-binding offer, Radiant, the fifth suitor for Fortis, proposed to make an investment and re-structure the company, Fortis said in a filing that had Radiant’s offer letter attached to it.

“I think now, we will have revised offers coming,” said Gaurang Shah, head investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services. Fortis also said on Thursday that it set up an advisory committee to evaluate binding bids. The committee is expected to give its recommendation to the board on April 26.

The company has become the target of a takeover battle that includes offers from China’s Fosun International and Malaysia’s IHH Healthcare. Both offers, however, are non-binding.

The other two offers — from local rival Manipal Health Enterprises and a consortium of two prominent Indian business families, Hero Enterprise and the Burman Family Office — are both binding. All the offers value Fortis within a tight range of $1.2-$1.4 billion.

Radiant has proposed to spin off the hospital business from the larger company to form a new company, which will exclude Fortis’ stake in Indian diagnostics chain SRL.

The all-cash offer to shareholders of the proposed new company is ₹126 per share, Radiant said.

This offer values the whole of Fortis at ₹165 per share, or ₹85.58 billion ($1.30 billion), including the SRL stake. —