When the third round of bids was opened, Oaktree's offer was the highest, but with several riders. While Piramal offered higher upfront cash and offered to merge its financial business with DHFL, Adani was ranked third in the race, reports Dev Chatterjee.
US-based Oaktree on Monday pipped Piramal Enterprises and Adani Group to emerge as the highest bidder for DHFL after fresh bids were invited under the insolvency process, according to sources. The committee of creditors had fixed December 14 as the last for submission of revised bids. According to the sources, Oaktree raised the bid to Rs 36,646 crore, including Rs 1,000 crore for insurance and Rs 3,000 crore of interest earned, while Piramal Enterprises offered Rs 35,550 crore, including Rs 300 for insurance and Rs 3,000 of interest earned.
Vedanta Resources (VRL), the diversified mining company headquartered in London, is giving final touches to a plan to raise up to $2.5 billion (about Rs 20,800 crore) as debt repayment deadlines near. The company owned by billionaire Anil Agarwal plans to do this by a combination of instruments, including issuing preference shares in the holding company to a slew of offshore investors from West Asia, and taking on another loan to refinance older debt at a higher interest rate. VRL, which is the group's holding company, is also looking to sell part of its 63.71 per cent stake in the Indian listed subsidiary Vedanta Ltd to meet funding requirements, said a banker close to the development.
Adani, which had earlier bid only for the wholesale book, now want all of DHFL's assets and has pipped both Oaktree and Piramal by bidding higher than each of them.
Piramal Enterprises on Friday claimed that its bid for resolution of debt-ridden mortgage lender DHFL is highest and fully compliant with regulatory norms. Since the conclusion of the fifth and final round of the bidding process last month, Piramal Enterprises and the US-based Oaktree Capital are claiming that their bids are the highest and fully implementable. According to sources, suitors have submitted bids in the range of Rs 35,000-37,000 crore.
An increased brand fee paid by India-listed Vedanta, apart from record dividend, has helped Vedanta Resources (VRL) - the London-based holding company of Vedanta Group - to repay part of its debt. Vedanta paid a brand fee of Rs 2,632 crore ($325 million) for 2022-23 (FY23), according to Nomura report. This was after the Anil Agarwal-owned holding company raised the brand fee to 2 per cent of the turnover for its Indian businesses in 2021.
A Hinduja Group firm on Wednesday emerged as the highest bidder with an offer of Rs 9,650 crore to take over debt-ridden Reliance Capital in the second round of auction, sources said. The bid by IndusInd International Holdings Ltd (IIHL) is higher than Rs 8,640 crore offer made by Torrent Investments in the first round of auction held in December last year. The other two suitors -- Torrent Investments and Oaktree -- did not participate in the second round of auction, sources said.
Independent valuers have given a liquidation value of up to Rs 13,000 crore for Reliance Capital, sources said. The Reliance Capital administrator, in the Committee of Creditors (CoC) meeting held on Wednesday, presented the valuation reports of the independent valuers - Duff & Phelps and RBSA, to the lenders. According to sources, independent valuers Dufff & Phelps and RBSA have given a liquidation value of around Rs 13,000 crore for Reliance Capital (RCAP).
Piramal Enterprises' bid for debt-ridden DHFL received the most votes from lenders at the close of the voting process on Friday, sources said. Piramal Enterprises' bid received 94 per cent votes as compared to 45 per cent for the US-based Oaktree Capital. Voting was done on various parameters, including qualitative and quantitative.
Vedanta group chairman, Anil Agarwal, 69, is well known for his business journey from a scrap dealer from Bihar to a London-based globe-girdling metal and oil and gas conglomerate with revenues of $19 billion. Now his abilities to keep his group from over-leveraging itself will be put to the test. Over the years, Agarwal, now based in London, set up the conglomerate via acquiring iron ore producer Sesa Goa, Cairn's oil producing assets in India, and Electrosteel Steel.
Tata AIG, ICICI Lombard and Nippon Life have evinced interest for the profit-making insurance arm of Reliance Capital (RCap), joining several prominent financial companies from India and abroad in the race for RCap's assets. The final day to submit an expression of interest (EoI) was March 25 and the bidders will now get access to the latest information about RCap before they make financial bids.
While the lender has Rs 17,000 crore of retail assets and land parcels in Juhu, Borivali, Worli, and Chembur in Mumbai, there may be a disconnect between the quality of DHFL's books and the value bidders ascribe to it.
The actress-cum-television host was spotted at the American city on Saturday.
Blackstone, KKR, and Bain Capital, among others, are in the race for its general insurance arm, and Bandhan Bank, Bain, and Dabur Investments have shown interest for RCap's 51 per cent stake in the life insurance business.
One smells a rat when cases are settled for too small a price offered either by the highest bidder or the promoter -- within and outside the legal ambit of insolvency process, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
22 companies won bids for the 31 contracts on offer; 15 were new entrants to the oil and gas business. Three years on, none of them have started production.
Bad loans continue to originate mainly from state-owned banks, where the top management's responsibility is not linked to career prospects nor has legal consequences, says Debashis Basu.