Jaypee Infratech creditors reject Suraksha Realty's offer

By Beena Parmar

  • 04 May 2019
Credit: Reuters

Creditors to debt-laden Jaypee Infratech Ltd have rejected a bid by a Suraksha Realty-led consortium, giving state-run NBCC (India) Ltd another chance to acquire the real estate firm.

The offer of the Suraksha Realty-led consortium failed to get the 66% votes required from the Committee of Creditors, Jaypee Infratech said in a stockexchange filing.

The final resolution plan of Suraksha Realty and Lakshdeep Investments & Finance Pvt. Ltd got 23.47% votes in its favour and 41.85% votes against. The rest 34.69% abstained from voting. 

Of the 23.47% votes, 22.46% came from homebuyers. Only 1% banks voted in favour of Suraksha’s resolution plan, the filing showed. The voting lasted three days starting Tuesday.

The rejection of Suraksha’s offer now leaves NBCC as the only company in contention to buy Jaypee Infratech, an infrastructure builder and real estate developer.

On 26 April, creditors including representatives of more than 23,500 homebuyers to the subsidiary of Jaiprakash Associates Ltd had decided not to consider NBCC's bid as it was subject to approval of various government authorities.

NBCC said on Wednesday it received the government's approval for its revised offer to take over the distressed real estate developer.

NBCC has offered Rs 5,000 crore for land parcels (as against the earlier Rs 3,000 crore) of Jaypee Infratech. It has also offered 100% equity of Yamuna Expressway, which is the only cash-generating asset with Jaypee Infratech. NBCC has also offered to sell unsold homes to the secured financial creditors of Jaypee Infratech, which is under debt of Rs 9,800 crore.

Lenders will meet on May 9 to decide on the fate of the Yamuna Expressway project.

Suraksha group had also made an offer for land worth Rs 5,000 crore to buy Jaypee Infratech.

Both financial creditors and homebuyers are now awaiting the impending ruling by the Allahabad bench of National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to get an extension to the insolvency proceedings beyond the current deadline of May 6.

Jaypee Infratech’s lead lender IDBI Bank has approached the Allahabad bench of the NCLT to seek this extension. The next hearing is scheduled for May 6.

After the NCLT order, the developer will likely head for a third round of bidding and invite fresh expressions of interest to buy the Jaypee group company.

This would allow not only NBCC to participate in the bidding but also give a chance to the promoters of Jaypee Group and Adani Group to throw their hat in the ring. Jaypee promoters are trying to seek control by approaching customers and meeting with homebuyers.