The markets gave a thumbs down to Apollo Hospitals Enterprises stock after news poured in that rival Fortis Healthcare, along with its associates, placed a $3.1 billion general offer before the shareholders of Singapore healthcare chain Parkway Holdings. Fortis offer counters the partial offer made by Malaysian sovereign fund Khazanah ? the third largest shareholder in Apollo ? to mop up an additional 27.5% stake in the healthcare company for $835 million.
Apollo?s stock has seen a steep run up since May 27 when Khazanah, which holds over 12% in the Apollo Hospital Enterprises ? made a partial offer for Parkway. Incidentally, Apollo and Parkway are joint venture partners in Apollo Gleneagles Hospital in Kolkata.
The stock zoomed as much as 8.05% to close at BSE on May 27 ? the day Khazanah made its offer for Parkway ? to close at Rs 761.4.
Since then, the stock has seen a steep run up and hit a high of Rs 816.6 to close on the BSE on June 23.
This translates into a spike of close to 16% compared to its closing price a day before the Kazanah offer for Parkway was made public.
However, since then, the stock has tumbled as much over 8% when the Singapore government set the deadline for Fortis to make a counter offer in six straight trading sessions. On Monday, the stock closed on BSE at Rs 748.9, down by 0.34% over to its closing price on Wednesday. The stock had hit an intra-day high of Rs 764.50 and a low of Rs 745.50. It saw a an yearly high of Rs 835.50 and a 52-week low of Rs 455.45. As of July 1, Apollo has a market capitalisation of Rs 4,627 crore.
?The Street has discounted the news already and Thursday?s correction may be in line with the general market trend. We will have to wait for the next move by Khazanah to get a clear signal,? a trader with a local brokerage house said. Despite repeated attempts, Apollo Hospital officials were not available for comment.