“It is a very Hindu kind of thing, very reincarnation so to speak, of a different form,” says a smiling Dr Tan See Leng, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of IHH Healthcare, reflecting on how life seems to come a full circle with Fortis.

“I was also in the company at that particular point in time when they made a bid for Parkway, at that time, I was just the newly appointed CEO,” says Dr Tan, of the takeover move for Parkway about eight years ago between Malaysia's Khazanah and Fortis. Finally, Fortis had walked away from that bid. And Parkway is one of IHH's key brands.

Cut to the present, Malaysian IHH Healthcare group has won the bid for cash-strapped Fortis Healthcare, making it the third suitor in as many months (the others being TPG-Manipal and Hero-Munjal, who did not make it to the end due to shareholders' lack of trust in the then board's decisions).

Speaking to BusinessLine in a video-conference call from Singapore, Dr Tan outlined his vision for Fortis including the intention to have representatives on the Fortis board of directors, once shareholder and other regulatory approvals were in.

IHH had been evaluating Fortis for a while, but had not quite taken the plunge. Explaining what changed, Dr Tan said, “I don’t think there was any particular trigger, we have always been interested in India. The first time around we did not proceed with it, wasn't because of intent. We couldn't get a handle on the outcome of the Daiichi injunction on the ex-promoters.”

In fact, the long shadow of an ongoing litigation between Fortis' former promoters Malvinder and Shivinder Singh and Japanese drugmajor Daiichi Sankyo, looms over the Fortis deal. The case involves the Singh brothers' sale of their shareholding in drug-maker Ranbaxy to Daiichi and a subsequent ugly fallout.

“Right up to June 2017 there were a lot of gaps in terms of our understanding,” Dr Tan explained on the uncertainty over any deal with Fortis because of developments around this case. “But we continued to look at the asset and when the process started again this year – we were ready,” he said.

Responding to why their latest offer was lower than the earlier one, he said, it was “fair” given the recently unveiled financial statements, “given what we know of the assets, given the provisions that have been taken and given the qualifications that have been put into the report.”

But there are still many challenges in terms of other financial probes into certain Fortis transactions under the previous management and there is a question mark on who owns the Fortis brand. But Dr Tan did not seem perturbed on the brand concern.

“We have our own international and global brands,” he said, adding that at some stage there was potential for a “gradual migration or co-branding with Gleneagles.”

Besides, he added, “The Gleneagles brand is quite well established in India.”

On the other challenges, he said, they were constantly seeking legal advice to indemnify incoming shareholders.

But healthcare is a long term investment, he said, and with shareholder approval “we hope we are given the opportunity to prove ourselves and obviously we will ride this journey with them,” he said, adding “we've only just begun”.

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