Fortis to sell Singapore unit to Fullerton for Rs.530 crore

Fortis Healthcare has agreed to sell its entire stake in Singapore-based healthcare services unit RadLink-Asia Pte Ltd and subsidiaries for about Rs.530 crore to Fullerton Healthcare Group, the company said on Friday.

The deal is around Rs.130 crore less than the one with IHH Healthcare of Malaysia. The deal with IHH Healthcare was scrapped by the Competition Commission of Singapore, which raised concerns as IHH already runs a large establishment in Singapore.

The sale of RadLink to Fullerton Healthcare Group is expected to be completed by May 12, a statement from Fortis said. JP Morgan and Religare Capital Markets acted as financial advisors for the transaction. They had also advised Fortis in selling a Singapore-based hospital asset to Chinese healthcare services firm Concord Medical Services for Rs.251 crore.

“The significant value that we have created in our international healthcare businesses is now being unlocked and will be ploughed back to strengthen our growth in India,” Fortis Healthcare executive chairman Malvinder Singh and executive vice-chairman Shivinder Singh said in a joint statement.

“The divestment of this last major international business is in line with our strategic decision to intensify focus on our core hospital and diagnostics business in India,” they added.

Fortis had gone after international acquisitions aggressively between 2010 and 2011. It had gone on to acquire healthcare assets in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore and Dubai, which saddled the company with a Rs.7,000-crore debt by the middle of the 2012-13 fiscal.

RadLink was one of Fortis’ last overseas acquisitions before it turned around its strategy and started selling these assets to trim its debt. Today, almost all of Fortis’ revenues are from India. Business Line