Jaypee Infratech insolvency: Creditors' meet on 30 May to discuss NBCC bid to acquire realty firm

New Delhi: Debt-laden Jaypee Infratech’s financial creditors, which include bankers and homebuyers, will meet on 30 May to discuss state-owned NBCC’s bid to acquire the realty firm and complete stuck housing projects. A meeting of Committee of Creditors (CoC) has been called on 30 May, sources said. As many as 13 banks and 23,000 homebuyers have voting rights in the committee. Earlier this month, creditors rejected a bid by Mumbai-based Suraksha Realty through a voting process. Later, the CoC decided to put on vote the NBCC’s offer even as bankers were opposed to this move citing certain conditions in the resolution plan submitted by the public sector firm. [caption id=“attachment_4294419” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters.[/caption] On the bankers’ plea, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) had on 17 May annulled voting by homebuyers and lenders on NBCC’s bid and allowed renegotiation on the offer by 30 May. The voting process could start from 31 May. At present, bankers and NBCC are negotiating on the latter’s bid to acquire Jaypee Infratech. Sources had earlier said that NBCC was unlikely to dilute certain conditions, including exemption from future tax liability, mentioned in its bid but the public sector firm was open to negotiating on the offer related to unsold flats. Lenders have shown reluctance to acquire up to 2,207 unsold flats worth Rs 1,756 crore as proposed by NBCC in its revised offer. In its latest offer, NBCC has proposed infusion of Rs 200 crore equity capital, transfer of 950 acres of land worth Rs 5,000 crore as well as Yamuna Expressway to banks and completion of flats by July 2023 in order to settle an outstanding claim of Rs 23,723 crore of financial creditors. On this bid, lenders had reservations on certain concessions sought by NBCC and had sought clarifications from the firm. However, NBCC decided not to dilute the conditions of exemption from future income tax liability as well as from taking consent of development authorities for transfer of businesses, including land parcels and Yamuna Expressway. Clarifications from the NBCC were sought in the wake of Jaypee Infratech’s Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) Anuj Jain flagging to the lenders that the state-owned firm’s bid was conditional and non-binding. The IRP had written to the CoC that NBCC’s revised bid was conditional as the plan would not be binding unless key relief measures such as extinguishing of income tax liability and exemption from seeking the consent of YEIDA (Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority) for any business transfer, were taken. In 2017, Jaypee Infratech went into insolvency process after the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted an application by an IDBI Bank-led consortium seeking revival of the realty firm. In the first round of insolvency proceedings conducted last year, the Rs 7,350-crore bid of Lakshdeep, part of Suraksha Group, was rejected by lenders. Later in October 2018, the IRP started the second round of bidding process to revive Jaypee Infratech on the NCLT’s direction.