Fortis Healthcare has shortlisted four entities to participate in the fresh round of bidding process for the sale of its business. These four parties include the Munjal-Burman combine, Manipal-TPG consortium, Malaysia’s IHH Healthcare Berhand and Radiant Life Care.

“The Company has received interest from various interested parties on May 31, 2018 as per the timelines specified in the Invitation for Transaction Participation. The Board of the Company has now decided to include the following four parties in the Process and has initiated various steps as outlined in the Transaction Process Letter,” Fortis Healthcare said in a regulatory filing.

The Fortis board decided to invite the three entities that had put in binding offers in the initial bidding process – Munjal-Burman combine, TPG-Manipal consortium, and IHH Healthcare Berhad – to participate in the fresh bidding process subject to certain conditions. These three selected entities had till today to confirm adherence to the new bidding process. Other interested parties were also asked to submit an Expression of Interest (EoI) by May 31.

The criteria of the fresh bidding process mandates that the buyers will have to make a minimum investment of Rs 1,500 crore into Fortis Healthcare by way of preferential allotment apart from having a plan for funding the acquisition of RHT Health Trust (RHT) and a plan for providing exit to private equity investors of diagnostic arm SRL. The submitted bids should be unconditional as well as mention about the source of funds for the transaction and elaborate on the plans for retention of current management and employees.

Earlier this week, Fortis Healthcare terminated the offer made by the Munjal-Burman combine and initiated a fress bidding process for its sale. This came to pass after some participants from the first initial process contested the Fortis board’s original choice.

Last week, shareholders voted out director Brian Tempest, who was among the four directors whose removal was sought by two institutional investors. Three other directors — Harpal Singh, Sabina Vaisoha and Tejinder Singh Shergill — had resigned ahead of an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) on May 22. Interestingly, these four directors were among the five who had favoured the binding offer made by Munjal-Burman combine.

Following these high-level exits, the Fortis board was revamped, with Suvalaxmi Chakraborty, Ravi Rajagopal and Indrajit Banerjee joining as independent direct