Malaysia’s IHH Healthcare Berhad said it was seeking legal counsel after markets regulator, SEBI asked it to get an order from the Delhi High Court before proceeding with its pending open offer for Fortis Healthcare.
In a communication to the Malaysian stock exchange, IHH said, “SEBI has advised ....that the open offers should be proceeded with after obtaining an appropriate order in this regard from the Delhi High Court.”
Just last week, IHH and Fortis management had told businessline that they were approaching SEBI to proceed with the pending, mandatory takeover offer for the additional 26 per cent stake in Fortis Healthcare, following a Supreme Court directive, late September.
In 2018, IHH Healthcare had won the bid for Fortis in a long-fought battle. Having picked up 31 percent stake in Fortis through a preferential allotment, IHH was mandated to make an open offer an additional 26 percent. But, the ₹4,000-crore deal ran into a challenge from Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo, which was locked in a legal battle with the Singh brothers — erstwhile promoters of drugmaker Ranbaxy, and then promoters of Fortis as well.
The SC order in September, sentenced the Singh brothers to six months in jail. And, it asked the Delhi HC to consider a forensic audit of transactions between Fortis and RHT Trust, (linked to the Singh brothers).
Reiterating IHH’s commitment to the deal and healthcare in India, Dr Kelvin Loh, Managing Director and Chief Executive with IHH Healthcare Berhad had recently told the paper, the IHH acquisition of Fortis had been done “in a fair, transparent manner, in compliance with all regulations.” Fortis Chairman, Ravi Rajagopal, had further explained, “It is both Fortis’ and IHH’s belief, arrived at independently with the assistance of their external senior counsel, that the SC ruling has vacated all the petitions, which is a fact that was in the letter of the ruling and that automatically implied the vacation of the status quo order. And it is this belief and view of external counsels that IHH has been presented to SEBI to consider, and seeking their concurrence to go ahead with the tender offer, which had been stayed because of the proceedings back in December 2018.”