Lenders to Videocon Industries on Monday approached the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), the country’s insolvency appellate tribunal, seeking fresh bids for the debt-laden consumer durables company. The lenders approached the tribunal after getting rapped for accepting the Vedanta Group’s bid that would give them a mere 5 per cent of their outstanding loans.  

Billionaire Anil Agarwal’s Twin Star Technologies had offered Rs 2,962 crore to take over Videocon Industries, which was 4.15 per cent of the admitted claims of the lenders of Rs 64,838.63 crore. 

State Bank of India (SBI), the leading lender of Videocon Industries, approached the NCLAT today, requesting for a rebidding of the 13 companies of the debt-ridden group on account of strong observations against the Rs 2,962-crore takeover bid by Mr Agarwal’s Twin Star Technologies. 

SBI, on behalf of the assenting creditors of Videocon, which represents 94.98 per cent of the consortium of banks, filed the application before the NCLAT on Monday, requesting to remand the matter back to the Committee of Creditors (CoC) for reconsideration and for conducting a fresh process of inviting bids. 

A two-member NCLAT bench, headed by Justice Jarat Kumar Jain and Kanthi Narahari, a member of the tribunal, has posted the matter for further hearing on September 27. 

SBI, the lead financial creditor in the CoC with an 18.05 per cent voting share, said that the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), the bankruptcy court, while approving the Rs 2,962-crore bid by Twin-Star Technologies, had made certain observations over the low-resolution plan and haircut suffered by various classes of stakeholders. 

Even the NCLAT, while granting an interim stay over the resolution plan and its NCLT approval, had said that there were “exceptional facts” into the matter. 

Earlier on June 9, the Mumbai bench of the NCLT had approved the Rs 2,962-crore takeover bid by Twin Star Technologies for the 13 companies of the debt-ridden group. 

However, the NCLT order was stayed by the appellate tribunal on July 19 over the petitions filed by two dissenting creditors of the Videocon Group – Bank of Maharashtra and IFCI. The NCLAT had directed to maintain “status quo ante” in the matter. 

“The observations of the Adjudicating Authority (NCLT) and the Appellate Tribunal necessitated a reconsideration by the Assenting Financial Creditors of their decision to accept the haircut of 95 per cent,” said SBI in the affidavit it filed before the NCLAT. 

Earlier, in its 47-page-long judgement, the NCLT, while approving Twin Star Technologies’ bid, had observed that the creditors of debt-ridden Videocon Industries would be taking nearly 96 per cent haircut on their loans and the bidder was “paying almost nothing”. 

The NCLT had also observed that the resolution plan was giving 99.28 per cent to the operational creditors, which it had sarcastically hinted to be “a haircut or tonsure or total shave”.