Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd has deferred its plan to list on the US exchange Nasdaq by a year.
The company's chairman, Dr Prathap C Reddy told Business Standard that the company has also postponed the work of aligning its accounts with US GAAP norms, entrusted to Deloitte Haskins & Sells by one year.
Dr Reddy said the Nasdaq listing is likely to happen only after 2005-06.
The company in its last board meeting held in the third week of July had decided to re-appoint its statutory auditors M/s S Viswanathan.
Apollo had earlier planned to replace M/s S Viswanthan with Deloitte Haskins & Sells citing the perceived comfort levels of international investors with multinational names as the main reason for proposing a change of auditors.
Dr Reddy said, "We are not in a hurry to list on the Nasdaq. We have adequate funds and have deferred the listing beyond 2005-06."
But sources within the Chartered Accountants Action Committee said that the timing of Apollo Hospitals' decision to retain the services of M/s S Viswanthan followed the white paper submitted by the CAAC.
Dr Reddy further said that the Apollo Hospitals has won a $1 million contract to be a 'transition managers' for a 302-bed hospital promoted by global oil giant Petronas in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
"We have won this contract against stiff competition from the American, Australian and British consortiums. We have been appointed only as transitionary managers for now. We expect the final MoU for managing the hospitals to be signed in the next two months," he added.