Billionaire brothers Malvinder & Shivinder Singh have struck another intra-group deal where a majority-owned public-listed firm is acquiring a large stake in a privately held group firm.
Oscar Investments Ltd has acquired 11.2 million shares of comprising 48.80 per cent of the total current paid-up capital of the firm for an undisclosed amount.
Religare Voyages is in aviation business with presence in charters, training and engineering support. According to its website, it has strategic hubs in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad besides licences to operate all around the globe.
The travel division has a registered office in Delhi with an operating office in Mumbai while the training division is located at the corporate office. The company’s fleet consists of jets, turbo prop aircraft and helicopters.
As per VCCEdge, the financial research arm of VCCircle, loss-making Religare Voyages had net worth of Rs 281 crore and reserves & surplus of Rs 250 crore even on small revenues for the year ended March 31, 2011. Bulk of its value could be derived from its investments whose value stood at Rs 285 crore in the last financial year.
Acquiring a large minority stake in an unrelated business need not raise the hackles of the corporate governance pundits though, least of all for NBFC Oscar, which does not have any institutional holding. Its promoters own 68.73 per cent of the public-listed NBFC while another 28.29 per cent stake is held by small corporate bodies. Just around 3 per cent is owned by the public at large.
However, those watching the moves made by the Singh brothers can see a similar pattern. In September last year, the Singh brothers had announced their plan to sell their privately held healthcare services firm Fortis Healthcare International, which operates hospitals in the Asia-Pacific region, to their majority-owned, public-listed firm Fortis Healthcare (India), in the biggest ever deal in the Indian healthcare services industry.
Prior to that, they also sold their entire holding of 74.59 per cent in IPO-bound diagnostics chain SRL to Fortis Healthcare for Rs 803 crore.
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