Buyout sought for India's Apollo Hospitals as owner seeks to pay debt

The aim is to reduce the Apollo shares pledged by the controlling family as collateral to lenders, to 20% of their total holding.

Bloomberg reports that the family that controls Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd., India’s largest private hospital chain, is looking to sell assets or bring an outside investor into their holding company to pay down debt.

The aim is to reduce the Apollo shares pledged by the family as collateral to lenders, to 20% of their total holding in the company from about 78% now, said Suneeta Reddy, Apollo’s managing director and one of the four daughters of founder Prathap Reddy. The Reddy family owns about 34% of Apollo’s stock.

“The idea is to do something that’s good for all shareholders of Apollo. If it means reducing our pledge, we are committed to doing that,” she said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We will see what the family can do.”

Shares of the Chennai-based company closed 0.5% lower on Monday after rising as much as 2.7% during trading. The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex advanced 0.2%.

Read the full report here.