MUMBAI, June 29: Metal Box India Ltd (MBIL) promoter Vinod Krishna is preparing a fresh revival package for his company. The package will involve fresh valuation of the firm's Worli property, whose sale proceeds, as and when it goes through, will fund the reopening of MBIL units in at least two locations.Krishna, in an exclusive interview to The Financial Express, said that he expects institutional lenders to be more realistic in their assessment of what sort of cash flow can be generated from the proposed asset sale.
He said the institutions had already agreed to his proposal that some funds from the transaction proceeds would flow into his 33 per cent-owned company coffers, to enable reopening of its units at Faridabad and Devnar.
The chief promoter of Metal Box, which has survived the last 10 years as a running company, but is sick, will submit the revival package to the Delhi high court in mid-July.
Krishna said Mardias, with whom a transaction was proposed earlier, are no longer likelybuyers of the Worli property. Metal Box is set to hold its annual general meeting on July 4, where routine resolutions will be passed.Two valuations of the Worli property have already been undertaken, first by the income-tax department and later by the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI).
As per the rehabilitation scheme of the company under the Board for Industrial & Financial Reconstruction, sanctioned in June 1996, the Worli unit is to be shifted to a non-urban area in Maharashtra. This would facilitate development of the Worli premises for real-estate purposes, which in turn would provide money to the company.
The Maharashtra government is yet to grant the permissions that were assumed under the valuations made by the I-T authorities of the Worli site. ICICI assumed what Krishna says is a very high f.s.i, implying that 178,136 square feet would be available at the site for development. Besides, the ICICI valuation also envisaged a multi-user status (implying that the propertywould be developed for triple purposes: official, commercial and residential).
After the scheme was sanctioned, a rival faction of the Bombay union went to the Appellate Authority for Industrial & Financial Reconstruction (AAIFR) against the shifting of Worli premises to a non-urban area. The AAIFR has dismissed their plea, says the company's latest annual report, but it made certain changes in the scheme. This resulted in the case going before the Delhi high court.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
