Fortis accounts to be audited by Grant Thornton

Fortis Healthcare is again in the limelight. As audit firm Deloitte Haskins & Sells has refused to acknowledge the company's Q2FY18 results for want of sufficient details on fund transfers, the company is planning to entrust the audit company Grant Thornton to probe the fund diversion allegations.

The company is being investigated for allegations that ex-promoters Shivinder and Malvinder Singh withdrew about Rs. 500 crore from Fortis Hospital Group without the approval of the board of directors.

Meanwhile, the company is also in news for receiving a helping hand from two major business families of India. Munjals of Hero Enterprise and Burmans of Dabur have offered a rescue plant to Fortis Healthcare. The Munjals and Burmans have jointly offered to invest Rs. 1,250 crore through preferential allotment basis.

This offer adds to the already exciting line-up of bidders for the company. Malaysia-based IHH is competing with Manipal-TPG consortium for Fortis assets and has offered a valuation of US$1.3 billion for the company. Manipal Hospitals backed by TPG wants to buy Fortis in a deal that would combine its 14 hospitals with Fortis’s 34 hospitals. It improved its earlier offer for Fortis to US$933.3 million or Rs. 116 per share to get close to IHH's offer.

On Friday, during morning hours of trade, the stock of Fortis Healthcare was quoting Rs. 154.25 per share, up by 0.29 per cent on BSE, when the benchmark index BSE Sensex was at 34,187.99, up 86.86 points or 0.25 per cent.