Jaypee insolvency case: Creditors’ panel approves Suraksha group’s offer; rejects NBCC bid

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New Delhi: Creditors’ panel of bankrupt-Jaypee Infratech on Thursday decided to start the voting process on Suraksha group’s offer from next week and rejected the plan proposed by state-owned NBCC, according to sources.

The sources said NBCC’s bid was found to be non-compliant with certain provisions of the insolvency law.

On Wednesday, construction firm NBCC and Suraksha group submitted their final resolution plans to acquire Jaypee Infratech Ltd (JIL) in the fourth round of corporate insolvency resolution process.

The sources said that a virtual meeting of the Committee of Creditors (CoC) was held on Thursday to discuss the bids.

During the meeting, it was decided to put on vote the Suraksha group’s resolution plan next week, they added.

Voting is likely to start from Monday and end on Thursday.

The committee decided not to put NBCC’s bid on voting as it found the offer of the public sector entity non-compliant with provisions of the insolvency law related to the treatment of assenting and dissenting financial creditors, as per the sources.

Interestingly, NBCC’s plan was approved by the CoC and the NCLT in the third round of bidding process held in late 2019 and early last year.

JIL’s Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) Anuj Jain had submitted a report in the CoC meet, stating that NBCC plan was non-compliant, the sources said.

Some banks were in favour of putting NBCC’s plan for voting but the CoC did not agree to it, they added.

In this fourth round of the bidding, Surakasha group proposed to give 2,651 acres of land parcels to lenders. It has earmarked 1,486 acre to dissenting lenders out of the total land parcels offered in the proposal.

Suraksha group will keep Yamuna Expressway with itself. It has also offered to complete the pending around 20,000 housing units in 42 months. Further, the group has proposed a line of credit of Rs 3,000 crore as working capital for construction of projects.

Further, it has given an undertaking that any shortfall to the dissenting creditors will be met by the company through pumping of more funds or assets.

It is estimated that around Rs 6,000 crore will be required to complete all stalled projects. The receivables from customers against sales are estimated at around Rs 3,500 crore, sources had said.

This is the fourth round of the bidding process in the matter of JIL case.

In March this year, the Supreme Court ordered to call bids only from NBCC and Suraksha group. The apex court had also directed completion of the resolution process in 45 days, which has already lapsed on May 8 and an application has been filed to extend the timeline for finding the buyer for JIL.

JIL went into the insolvency process in August 2017 after the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted an application by an IDBI Bank-led consortium.

In the first round of insolvency proceedings, the Rs 7,350-crore bid of Lakshadweep, part of Suraksha Group, was rejected by lenders. The CoC had rejected the bids of Suraksha Realty and NBCC in the second round held in May-June 2019.

The matter then reached the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) and later the apex court.

On November 6, 2019, the Supreme Court directed completion of JIL’s insolvency process within 90 days and ordered that the revised resolution plan be invited only from NBCC and Suraksha Realty.

In December 2019, the CoC comprising 13 banks and around 21,000 homebuyers, approved the resolution plan of NBCC with a 97.36 per cent vote in favour under the third round of the bidding process.

In March 2020, NBCC had got an approval from NCLT to acquire JIL. Homebuyers’ claim amounting to Rs 13,364 crore and lenders’ claims worth Rs 9,783 crore were admitted last year.

However, the order was before NCLAT and later in the Supreme Court, which in March 2020 ordered to call fresh bids from the same two contenders — NBCC and Suraksha.