Renuka Ramnath exits Fortis advising committee on M&A Deals

Renuka Ramnath, founder of private equity firm Multiples Alternate Asset Management, has resigned from the advisory committee constituted for the evaluation binding bids for its sale by the board of Fortis Healthcare Ltd.

An advisory panel set up by the Fortis board was scheduled to meet on Wednesday to evaluate multiple bids. It is set to submit its recommendations to the board on Thursday.

Fortis informed the stock exchanges late on Wednesday that Ramnath “excused herself from being the member of the committee due to her pre-occupation.”

However, a Mint report, citing regulatory filings, said one of the bidders Sunil Kant Munjal  is an investor in Multiples’ second fund. This posed a potential conflict of interest.

Interestingly, Fortis announced the names of the committee members including Ramnath to evaluate the bids on April 19. This was one week after Munjal had joined hands with Burmans of Dabur to make a surprise bid for Fortis.

The other two members of the panel are Deepak Kapoor, former chairman and CEO of Price Waterhouse Coopers, India and Lalit Bhasin, President, Society of Indian Law Firms & Managing Partner, Bhasin & Co.

The company said that Ramnath’s resignation will be placed before the board on Thursday.

Ramnath’s Multiples is in the process of raising money for its third fund that would double the size of its assets under management to around $2 billion.