Fortis crashes after SC halts open offer

The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to allow Malaysia’s IHH Healthcare Bhd to proceed with an open offer to buy additional shares of Fortis Healthcare Ltd, triggering a rout in the Indian hospital operator’s stock. The top court also sent back to the Delhi high court a case relating to the sale of Fortis shares by its lenders to IHH and asked the court to consider a forensic audit into the sale on a plea by Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo, which is trying to enforce a ₹3,500 crore arbitration award it won against Fortis’ founder brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh in Singapore. In 2018, IHH Healthcare bought a controlling 31% stake in Fortis for $1.1 billion, prompting a mandatory open offer to purchase an additional 26% of Fortis’ shares from ordinary stockholders. In a lawsuit filed against the Singh brothers, Daiichi Sankyo claimed that despite the Supreme Court’s prohibition, they had pledged 1.7 million shares of Fortis Healthcare held by Fortis Healthcare Holding.