Fortis Healthcare, with a network of 8000-bed capacity across 48 hospitals, has lost the battle for controlling stake in Parkway Holdings, Singapore. It decided to divest entire strategic stake of 23.9 per cent to Integrated Healthcare Holdings, the investment arm of Khazanah Nasional, Malaysia, at S$ 3.95 per share in cash. Fortis had purchased 26.95 lakh shares in Parkway from TPG Capital in an off market deal at S$3.56 per share. Besides this, it purchased additional 13.2 million shares through open market purchases at around S$3.22 per share, thereby making the investment in 282.7 million shares at approx. S$3.54 per share.
Commenting on the development Malvinder Mohan Singh, chairman, Fortis and Parkway, said, "After considered and deliberate discussions, we have decided to divest our strategic stake in Parkway and have reached an agreement with Khazanah to accept their voluntary general offer. Our decision to exit our investments took into account the interest of all stakeholders of Fortis. It was made after careful assessment of the intrinsic value of Parkway and in light of other growth opportunities available to us across the region and globally."
"Our strength lies in our accumulated experience and domain knowledge of the healthcare sector. We continue to invest in strong operating systems, processes, our people and our people and our continuous focus on quality. This expertise will form the foundation of our learning that we intend leveraging in building a pan-Asian and global healthcare platform going forward. We remain committed to this strategy and will explore other organic and inorganic opportunities within the region. We firmly believe that as principals, we need to constantly demonstrate disciplined and rational decision making which is in long-term interest of all our stakeholdelrs." He added.
Malvinder Mohan Singh said, "Our vision for a global healthcare service provider which can cross leverage learnings across geographies, optimize cost and provide the best quality to the benefit of the patient has not changed. In fact our experience has made us a more astute healthcare player. We hope to re-invest the value unlocked from this experience to the advantage of our stakeholders, and to support our vision to become a global healthcare provider. We are long-term players in the healthcare business and we understand this business. We are committed in achieving our growth objectives and work towards enhancing shareholder value. We will study the secondary listing of Fortis on the Singapore Exchange."