Fortis hires 3 i-banks to help raise funds

NEW DELHI: Fortis Healthcare has appointed three investment banks — Religare Capital, RBS and Macquarie — to raise funds, which could be used for a possible counter bid for Singapore’s Parkway Holdings. A consortium of banks are willing to fund up to $1 billion, according to TV channel ET NOW, which is a sister concern of this newspaper. When contacted, Fortis Healthcare declined to comment.

On Thursday, Malaysian fund Khazanah made its formal offer to increase its stake to 51.5% in Parkway. Fortis Healthcare, owned by brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, is at present the largest shareholder in Parkway with a 25.4% stake. Khazanah holds 24%.

Last week, Delhi-based Fortis announced plans to raise Rs 2,750 crore through securities, and increased its borrowing limit to Rs 6,000 crore. Though the company didn’t specify the objective of raising the funds, most analysts believe the money would be used to fund its bid for Parkway.

On Monday, UK-based FrontPoint Management LLP, a unit of Morgan Stanley, bought 110,000 more shares of Parkway Holdings at S$3.85 a share for an investment client, the bank said in an exchange filing.