Adani Enterprises has written to the Committee of Creditors (CoC) of Dewan Housing Finance Corp. Ltd (DHFL), expressing its interest to bid for the entire portfolio of the troubled company, according to two people aware of the matter.
The company has suggested a bid price that is Rs250 crore higher than Oaktree’s bid and informed the CoC that it plans to submit the resolution plan next week, the two people said.
Adani group has also sent a revised bid for the wholesale and slum rehabilitation (SRA) book. The company, which had put in a bid of Rs2,300 crore for the portfolio, has now raised it to Rs2,800 crore. This has forced the CoC to seek fresh bids from all suitors in the second round of bidding by Tuesday, according to the two people cited earlier.
The four bidders—the two others are Piramal Enterprises and SC Lowy—did not respond to emails seeking comment. On 9 November, the bidders submitted revised bids to either pick up a stake in the company or buy out assets.
Oaktree Capital submitted a revised bid for the entire portfolio at Rs31,000 crore compared to Rs28,000 crore earlier. Piramal Enterprises revised its bid price for the retail portfolio to Rs26,000 crore from Rs15,000 crore earlier. SC Lowy has upped its bid for the non-SRA book to Rs2,300 crore from Rs1,500 crore earlier.
A day later, the erstwhile DHFL promoter, Kapil Wadhawan, sought a second hearing from lenders to reconsider a resolution proposal that he had submitted last month.
Wadhawan continued to claim that the bids are “abysmally low” and will result in loss of public money.
He also reiterated his request to the creditors to consider the proposal to make full repayment to all financial creditors without any haircut if he is allowed to run the company. He has proposed to transfer the rights, title and interest in at least 10 projects valued at Rs43,879 crore and settle the dues with banks.
Currently, promoters hold about 39.21% stake in DHFL. Bankers want promoters’ stake to fall below 10% after the stake sale as part of the resolution plan.
DHFL was the first financial services company to be sent to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) under the insolvency and bankruptcy code (IBC). In November last year, the Reserve Bank of India superseded its board and placed it under a three-member advisory committee comprising Rajiv Lall, executive chairman of IDFC First Bank; N.S. Kannan, managing director of ICICI Prudential Life; and N.S. Venkatesh, chief executive of the Association of Mutual Funds in India.