The first quarter of 2019-20 brought some cheer to Fortis Healthcare . The company announced a profit after tax of ₹67.8 crore for the quarter against a loss of ₹70.8 crore in the first quarter of last year.

“There has been a reduction in gross debt from ₹1,657 crore in 2018-19 to ₹1,388 crore in 2019-20,” said Ashutosh Raghuvanshi, MD and CEO, Fortis Healthcare. The consolidated revenue of the company grew 9.2 per cent to reach ₹1,138 crore.

While ₹4,000 crore has been infused by Malaysian healthcare giant IHH in the company, Fortis is still waiting to complete the whole deal in the light of the Supreme Court (SC) stay imposed on the Fortis-IHH deal, which disallows floating of an open offer to infuse an additional ₹3,300 crore in the company. The SC has heard all arguments and reserved it’s verdict.

“With the money that came by from IHH, assets of Religare Health Trust have been acquired which has led to the credit rating improvement of the company. However, a major part of the transaction has been stayed by the SC, which has led to apprehension amidst people but that is not impacting the day-to-day operations at a functional level,” said Raghuvanshi.

Fortis has to recover close to ₹445 crore from it’s erstwhile promoters Malvinder and Shivinder Singh and Raghuvanshi said the company is exploring all legal options of civil recovery and a step towards that can be expected soon. Raghuvanshi further said the Fortis brand is not owned by the company, and the company merely has a license to use it. “We are exploring options to acquire the brand or change it,” he said.

Raghuvanshi also said the company is co-operating with investigative authorities like the Enforcement Directorate (ED) by sharing data and information from the company’s old records and meetings following raids at the Singh brothers’ offices and residences.

 

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