As the deadline for receiving bids for Fortis' healthcare assets came to a close on May 1, Malaysia's IHH Healthcare Berhad submitted a revised offer valuing Fortis at Rs 175 per share, a number higher than its earlier offer of Rs 160 per share.
IHH's latest proposal includes an immediate equity infusion at Rs 175 per share, and a subsequent equity infusion at a price not exceeding Rs 175 per share.
However, IHH has said that this subsequent equity infusion would be subject to satisfactory completion of due diligence.
On April 24, IHH had tweaked an earlier bid and proposed to immediately infuse Rs 6.5 billion as a binding offer. It also extended a subsequent investment of up to Rs 33.5 bn under a non-binding offer, subject to due diligence.
Meanwhile, the Hero Enterprises-Burman Family Office, which has sought to invest Rs 15 billion in the hospital chain, also revised the validity of their offer to May 4.
Bidding for Fortis closes on Tuesday. TPG backed- Manipal Hospitals will have a chance to revise its offer till May 6 based on bids received on May 1. This is as per 'obligations' towards the Manipal-TPG consortium, Fortis has said.
The Fortis board will meet on May 10 to select an investor and the deadline for submitting bids has been extended to May 1.
Objecting to the board's decision to extend the timeline for submitting bids to May 1, Hero Enterprises had sought a level-playing field for all the bidders.
"We are a bit surprised as we had assumed that the final bids were submitted and the process now was only to review and choose the best offer. We strongly believe that there should be an equal opportunity given to all bidders without any unfair advantage to any one party," Sunil Kant Munjal, chairman of Hero Enterprises had said a few days back.