Jaypee Infra insolvency: NBCC sweetens bid by offering more land & benami flats to lenders

Jaypee Infratech owed nearly Rs 10,000 crore to bankers.

State-owned NBCC Ltd on Sunday sweetened its bid to acquire bankruptcy-bound Jaypee Infratech, by offering lenders 1,426-acre land instead of 950 acres earlier and also providing half of 3,000 benami flats to them, sources said.

The company, which submitted its resolution plan on Sunday, is also believed to have offered 75 per cent of 858 acres land which is expected to be transferred back to Jaypee Infratech from the parent company Jaiprakash Associates, they added.

NBCC has also taken the responsibility for selling Rs 1,750 crore worth unsold flats of Jaypee Infratech instead of offering them to lenders, sources said, adding that the Yamuna Expressway that connects Noida and Agra will also be transferred to financial creditors.

NBCC and Suraksha Realty were asked to submit their revised offer by Jaypee Infratech’s Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) Anuj Jain, as per the direction of the Supreme Court. Suraksha Realty has also submitted its bid but its details could not be ascertained.

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A meeting of Committee of Creditors (CoC) is scheduled on Monday, November 18, to discuss the resolution plans of both the contenders. According to sources, NBCC has offered 1,426 acres of land worth Rs 5,000 crore to financial creditors as against 950 acres in the earlier bid that got rejected by the COC in June this year. This was one of the demands by bankers then. Moreover, the company has provided 75 per cent of 858-acre land which is likely to be transferred to Jaypee Infratech.

Sources said Jaypee Infratech has about 3,000 benami flats, which have no claimants and NBCC is ready to give 50 per cent of these units to bankers. These flats are estimated to be worth Rs 2,500 crore. In its last resolution plan submitted in May-June 2019, the NBCC had proposed infusion of Rs 200 crore equity capital and transfer of 950 acres of land worth Rs 5,000 crore as well as Yamuna Expressway to banks in order to settle an outstanding claim of Rs 23,723 crore of financial creditors, including banks and home buyers.

Jaypee Infratech owed nearly Rs 10,000 crore to bankers. Anuj Jain, the IRP, has sought revised bids from the NBCC and Suraksha Realty and called the CoC meeting as per the direction of the apex court. On November 6, the Supreme Court had directed completion of Jaypee Infratech’s insolvency process within 90 days and said the revised resolution plan will be invited only from the NBCC and Suraksha Realty. This will be the third round of bidding process in the Jaypee Infratech insolvency matter.

In 2017, Jaypee Infratech went into insolvency process after the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted an application by an IDBI Bank-led consortium. 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. NBCC and Suraksha Realty took part in the bidding process but their plans were rejected by the lenders, and the matter reached to the appellate tribunal and then the Supreme Court. As many as 13 banks and over 23,000 home buyers have voting rights in the CoC. Buyers have nearly 60 per cent votes. For the bid to be approved, 66 per cent voters should be in favour of the deal.