While a consortium of Dalmia Bharat and Bain Piramal Resurgence Fund had reportedly emerged victorious with a bid of over Rs 6,700 crore for Binani Cement assets trumping Ultratech Cement, the Aditya Birla Group company has approached the NCLT seeking a more transparent way of evaluating the bids. Interestingly, a Bloomberg report had earlier said that Ultratech Cement had submitted bids for around Rs 6,200 crore, and the fight had now narrowed down to just two bidders-Ultratech and Dalmia Bharat.
Six entities were said to be vying for a stake in the company including the combination of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and Radhakishan Damani; Heidelberg; JSW Cement and True North-Ramco and the two other being Ultratech and Dalmia Bharat.
According to a report in The Economic Times, Ultratech Cement said that since the monetary value of the two offers (Ultratech and Dalmia Bharat) are quite close, lenders should call upon both the bidders in a final round to modify their bids. Further, the company said that the process should aim for a value maximisation of all stakeholders. Business Standard reported an UltraTech company’s source as saying that bidder had been informed of the weight that would be given to various parameters such as the company’s background, experience and upfront cash to be paid to the secured lenders, apart from just the monetary value of the bid.
A few reports had earlier suggested that the lenders may have got influenced by past penalties against Ultratech by the CCI (Competition Commision of India). The lenders in the company had reportedly made a claim of Rs 3,884 crore which includes loans acquired by Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company from banks and dues to India’s largest lender State Bank of India, state-run Canara Bank and Bank of Baroda. Further, the company also faces claims of Rs 2,429 crore from IDBI Bank and SBI in the form of corporate guarantees. It remains to be seen as to who comes out as the final winner in this Binani Cement tug of war.