DHFL shares may get delisted post acquisition by Piramal

• Follow

New Delhi: Debt-ridden mortgage firm DHFL’s shares would be delisted from stock exchanges post acquisition by Piramal Capital and Housing Finance, which has emerged as the successful bidder for the company.

As part of resolution process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), lenders led by Union Bank of India in January this year favoured the bid by Piramal Capital and Housing Finance to take over the beleaguered housing finance firm.

According to sources, shares of DHFL would be delisted post acquisition as per the IBC guidelines and Sebi delisting norms.

Besides, sources said, the company may merge itself with DHFL for which call would be taken after all legal and regulatory clearances are obtained.

The Mumbai-bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Monday gave its conditional approval to Piramal Group’s bid for DHFL.

The resolution plan had already received approvals from the RBI in February and Competition Commission of India (CCI) in April 2021.   The tribunal, chaired by H P Chaturvedi and Ravikumar Duraisamy, said the approval is subject to the final judgement from the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) and the Supreme Court’s judgement on the plea of erstwhile promoter Kapil Wadhawan.

Last year, Wadhawan had made his settlement offer to the Committee of Creditors (CoC). The offer was rejected by the creditors, citing lack of credibility and the valuations attached to the proposed asset sales. In the plan, Wadhawan had proposed to repay lenders by selling assets.

Meanwhile, Piramal in a statement said “we are pleased with the judgment today by the NCLT for approving our resolution plan for DHFL. This follows the endorsement of 94 per cent of lenders, and the subsequent approvals from RBI and CCI, and reiterates the strength and quality of our bid.” The approval from NCLT is a significant milestone in DHFL’s resolution and an affirmation of the sanctity of the IBC process in India, it said.

Piramal is committed to collaborating with all relevant authorities, regulators, creditors and investors involved in this resolution and looks forward to a speedy culmination of the resolution process, it added.

In November 2019, RBI had referred DHFL — then the third-largest pure-play mortgage lender — for resolution under the Code.

It was the first finance company to be referred to NCLT by the RBI using special powers under Section 227 of the IBC.

DHFL had gone bankrupt with more than Rs 90,000 crore in debt to various lenders, including banks, mutual funds and individual investors who kept fixed deposits with the company.  Turning the corner, Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL) on Sunday reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 96.75 crore for the last quarter of fiscal ended in March 2021.  The company had posted a net loss of Rs 7,507.01 crore in the January-March quarter of the year-ago fiscal. It had reported a loss of Rs 13,095.38 crore in the December quarter of 2020-21.

For the full year 2020-21, the non-banking finance company posted a net loss of Rs 15,051.17 crore, which widened from Rs 13,455.81 crore in 2019-20.

Shares of DHFL closed nearly 10 per cent higher at Rs 20.80 on the BSE on Monday.