India's Fortis Healthcare says evaluating bid from Manipal Health

Hospital chain Fortis Healthcare Ltd said on Tuesday it was evaluating an unsolicited offer from rival Manipal Health Enterprises Pvt Ltd on March 23.

Fortis, based in the northern Indian city of Gurugram, had not yet made a firm decision about the offer, it said in a statement https://www.bseindia.com/xml-data/corpfiling/AttachLive/E85F5369_DC96_4D..., pushing its shares down 2.5 percent in afternoon trading.

The shares rose as much as 4.2 percent earlier in the day after the Mint newspaper reported the boards of Fortis and Manipal Health were expected to meet to approve the proposed merger.

The statement comes weeks after media reports that U.S.-based private equity firm TPG Capital, a shareholder in Manipal, wanted the two companies to merge and form the largest healthcare services provider in the country.

Fortis` main backers, Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh, resigned from its board last month following legal troubles related to the sale of their stake in Ranbaxy to Japan`s Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd . The Ranbaxy case is unrelated to Fortis.

"We continue to support the management and the board to successfully transition to the new joint entity," the Singh brothers said in a statement late Tuesday.

The merger of Fortis and Manipal will unlock significant value for all stakeholders, they said.

(This article has not been edited by Zeebiz editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)