The consortium of 15 lenders to Winsome Diamonds have referred the R4,000 crore account to the corporate debt restructuring (CDR) cell, according to bankers. They added that lenders are expected to meet on June 24 to finalise the package. The consortium had appointed a core group of four lenders, which included Punjab National Bank, Central Bank of India, Canara Bank and Bank of India.
The core group was investigating Winsome?s Dubai operations after many importers who had bought jewellery from them had failed to make payments. Banks grew suspicious after officials belonging to the Dubai office of a bank could not gather information and locate the offices of these overseas customers to whom Winsome had exported jewellery.
The lenders had given stand-by letters of credit (SBLCs) in favour of international bullion banks like StanChart of London, Standard Bank of South Africa, and Scotiabank, which have encashed these LCs recently after Winsome failed to pay up these foreign banks.
According to a report by PTI, the bankers had released corporate guarantees and other and mortgages to the Mumbai-based jeweller to reportedly help it raise funds. Now, what they are left with is only the personal guarantees of promoter Jatin Mehta, who is lives in Dubai and Singapore now.
The banking system is known to have an exposure of close to R6,000 crore towards Winsome Diamonds and Jewellery and group companies Su-Raj Industries and Forever Diamonds. PNB is the largest lender in the 15 bank consortium, with an exposure of over nearly R1,800 crore.
According to Winsome?s website, its core activities are manufacture and export of gold, silver and platinum jewellery studded with diamonds, colour stones and semi-precious stones, plain jewellery apart from manufacturing and exporting polished diamonds. Su-Raj Diamonds was renamed as Winsome last year and Madan Khurjekar was appointed non-executive chairman after Mehta stepped down as chairman.