At least 17 entities express interest to buy Srei firms

As many as 17 entities, including Singapore’s Makara Capital and a few major asset reconstruction companies, have submitted their formal expressions of interest (EoIs) to acquire debt-laden SREI Group companies under the consolidated corporate insolvency resolution processes, persons familiar with the development told FE.

Makara Capital and asset reconstruction companies including JM Financial Asset Reconstruction Company and Asset Reconstruction Company (India) Limited (ARCIL) have already submitted EOIs. The number of EoIs are expected to increase as some documents are coming through courier services, the persons cited above said. Saturday was the last date for submitting EoIs. A mail sent to Rajneesh Sharma, the administrator for the two companies, went unanswered till the time of going to press.

Big corporates, including Vedanta Limited, Adani Group and Jindal Steel & Power, may also join in the form of consortium with some of the entities, said sources.
The insolvency proceedings against the two NBFCs commenced from October last year after the insolvency petitions filed by the Reserve Bank of India were approved by the Kolkata bench of the NCLT. Rajneesh Sharma, former chief general manager of Bank of Baroda, took charge of the two Srei companies after the central bank came down heavily on both the companies over governance issues and superseded the boards of directors in October last year.

Notably, as of January 31, the administrator admitted total claims of Rs 22,964.64 crore of commercial banks on SIFL and SEFL against the combined amount of Rs 25,115.29 crore claimed by them.

The Kolkata bench of the NCLT on October 8 gave its approval to start insolvency proceedings against the two companies after the RBI filed insolvency applications against them. The central bank had filed the insolvency petitions just after the Bombay High Court dismissed a writ petition filed by two promoters of Srei group challenging the RBI’s decision to supersede the boards of these companies and initiate insolvency proceedings against them.