The board of State Bank of India is learnt to have approved resolution plan for sale of Reliance Communications, through which lenders are expected to recover around Rs 23,000 crore.
UV Asset Reconstruction Company is believed to have placed bid of around Rs 14,700 crore, while Reliance Jio has made an offer of Rs 4,700 crore for tower and fibre assets of Reliance Infratel Ltd. There will also be a clawback of Rs 4,300 crore of priority payments made to Chinese and Indian creditors.
Jio placed bid for tower and fibre assets of Reliance Infratel Ltd (RITL) and UVARC for assets of RCom and Reliance Telecom Ltd.
“SBI board has approved a resolution plan for RCom. It is expected to vote favourably for the RCom resolution plan at the committee of creditors (COC) Meeting. Voting on the RCom Resolution Plan has started at the COC and will end on March 4,” according to sources privy to the development.
Email query sent to SBI and RCom resolution professional did not elicit any immediate reply.
RCom’s secured debt is estimated to be around Rs 33,000 crore. Lenders submitted claims of around Rs 49,000 crore in August.
Reliance Communications has put all of its assets on sale that includes spectrum holding of 122 megahertz (MHz), tower business, optical fibre network and data centres.
According to an order by the National Company Law Tribunal, the CoC had to complete the entire process by January 10 but it sought extension in deadline. The resolution professional, Deloitte, is expected to file resolution plan with the NCLT Mumbai on March 5.
RCom in the past had tried to sell assets to various companies, including Reliance Jio, to clear debt but the deals did not materialise. Reliance Jio cancelled agreement to buy RCom assets, including spectrum, as it did not want to bear the past liabilities of the debt-ridden firm.
Later, the insolvency proceedings against RCom started on a plea filed by Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson after the company failed to clear its dues.
Reliance Communications had reported widening of its consolidated loss to Rs 10,598 crore for the third quarter ended December 2019.
The company had posted a loss of Rs 238 crore in the same period a year ago.
According to a note by its auditors, RCom’s loss for the quarter would have been higher by Rs 1,271 crore had it provided for interest and foreign exchange variation.
The total income of RCom slipped to Rs 263 crore during the reported quarter, from Rs 1,083 crore in the same quarter of 2018-19.-Agencies
