Fortis Healthcare Ltd, India's second-largest hospital chain, said on Thursday Bhavdeep Singh has resigned as the company's chief executive officer.
The company's board has accepted his resignation, Fortis said in a stock-exchange filing.
Singh will continue in his current capacity till Fortis finds his successor, the company said.
Fortis said Singh led the company over the past three-and-a-half years, including during the past two years when the company went through a period of high turbulence.
His resignation comes months after Fortis accepted Malaysian firm IHH Healthcare Berhad’s takeover proposal following a protracted bidding war.
Singh is the second top executive to quit Fortis after IHH won the bidding war; Gagandeep Singh Bedi had resigned as the company's chief financial officer in August. Bedi had been with the company for almost seven years and was appointed CFO of Fortis in September 2014.
The bidding war had taken several twists and turns amid concerns over Fortis’ deteriorating financial health and a barrage of legal matters associated with former promoters Malvinder Singh and his brother Shivinder Singh. A media report in August had said that Bedi and CEO Singh were aware of the alleged financial misdoings by the Singh brothers.
Fortis had, in July, accepted IHH's proposal to inject as much as Rs 7,300 crore into the hospital chain, making it the largest investment in the South Asian nation's healthcare sector.
To tackle financial irregularities at the hospital chain, Fortis had said in June that it would take legal measures against Malvinder Singh for alleged fraud as the company revealed a multi-fold jump in losses for the year through March.
For Bhavdeep Singh, this was his second stint as the Fortis CEO. He was the company's CEO from 2009 to 2011 before quitting to join Ahold, a Netherlands-based retailer.
He was reappointed as the CEO in July 2015, taking over the position left vacant when Aditya Vij had resigned in November 2014. Before Fortis, he had worked with Reliance Retail and Spencer's.
