SINGAPORE/NEW DELHI: Malaysian state investor Khazanah trumped India's Fortis Healthcare in a takeover battle for Singapore's Parkway with an offer that values Asia's biggest listed hospital operator at $3.3 billion.
The deal pitted a state investor and private enterprise in a rare asset tussle and ended two months of sometimes hostile wrangling over the healthcare firm.
Both Fortis and Khazanah had sought to spearhead their expansion in the region's booming healthcare market via Parkway, which runs hospitals in Singapore, Malaysia, India and China.
The deal follows the sale of Australia's Healthscope (HSP.AX) to private equity firms TPG TPG.UL} and Carlyle [CYL.UL for $1.73 billion.
Khazanah -- in its biggest acquisition overseas -- said it was offering around S$3.95 ($2.88) per share for all Parkway shares it does not own, or about 76 percent, topping the S$3.80 offered by Fortis, confirming an earlier Reuters story.
Fortis, in accepting the Khazanah offer, said it would use the S$116.7 million profit on its Parkway stake to look for other opportunities.
"At the end of the day, you have to take an economic call. You can't take an emotional call on the assets you want to own," Shivinder Singh, managing director and one of the two billionaire Singh brothers who control Fortis told reporters in New Delhi.
Shares of Fortis, controlled by Shivinder Singh and his brother Malvinder, had surged more than 6 percent in Mumbai just ahead of Khazanah's confirmation.
The brothers, heirs to Ranbaxy Laboratories (RANB.BO) which was built by their grandfather and they later sold to Japan's Daiichi Sankyo (4568.T), have ambitions to build their healthcare business in a series of deals.
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