In a small victory in a fight involving thousands of crores, the Japanese pharma giant, Daiichi-Sankyo, will be paid close to ₹9 crore that has been extracted by the court commissioner by selling shares of companies in which Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, erstwhile promoters of Fortis Healthcare and their family, held a stake.
Daiichi has to be paid ₹3,500 crore by the Singh brothers, according to an award by the Singapore arbitration tribunal that the brothers have failed to honour.
Selling equity shares
The Delhi High Court on July 18 had directed the court-appointed commissioner, an independent entity, to start selling the unencumbered equity shares listed on the stock exchanges held by the brothers, their family members and companies in which they held a stake.
The court commissioner started the sale of shares on July 24.
While 32,29,645 shares of the respondents were required to be sold, a mere 18.95 per cent (6,12,019) shares were sold in small lots as there were not many takers and ₹9 crore realised, sources told Businessline.
Companies whose shares remained unsold were those of Dion Global Solutions Ltd, Healthfore Technologies Ltd and Oscar Investments Ltd, while majority of the shares that were sold were that of Religare Enterprises Ltd.
No takers for majority
The balance 26,17,626 shares are in the process of being sold in small lots on a day-to-day basis.
The total realisable value of these by current market rates is a little over ₹44 crore, the source said.
While ICICI, Axis and YES Bank tried to halt the flow of money to Daiichi by objecting, Justice Shakdher was firm that Daiichi was entitled to the award money first and ‘it shall get it’.
Justice Shakdher also came down heavily on Malvinder Singh and ordered that a sum of Singapore $3.5 million (approximately ₹18.21 crore) be deposited in the Judiciary’s coffers within four weeks.
Malvinder Singh in an affidavit filed with the court had said that he had sold 45 lakh shares of Religare Health Trust, a company in which he held stake, listed in Singapore in April earlier this year.
The High Court was displeased by this action and held him to have disobeyed its orders passed earlier in February, when it had instructed the Singh brothers to maintain monies to honour the decree awarded to Daiichi which the court was enforcing.