Reliance Retail, Jindal (India) make offers to acquire bankrupt Future Enterprises
Future Enterprises has received resolution plans from Jindal (India) Ltd, Reliance Retail Ventures and GBTL Ltd under the corporate insolvency process, according to disclosures made by the company to the stock exchange. The National Company Law Tribunal admitted Kishore Biyani’s Future Enterprises for corporate insolvency on February 27. The newly appointed resolution professional Avil Menezes disclosed the names of these three entities as a 'provisional list of prospective resolution applicants'.
The RP has admitted Rs 12,265 crore of verified claims from lenders and Rs 23 crore of claims from fixed deposit holders.FEL had significant borrowings in the form of bonds and thus, several trusteeship companies have filed claims. Centbank Financial Services has filed the highest claim of Rs 3,344 crore, followed by Axis Trustee Services at Rs 1,341 crore and Vistra ITCL (India) at Rs 210 crore. Four of the Kishor Biyani-promoted Future Group companies are undergoing insolvency proceedings.
These are FEL, Future Retail Ltd, Future Lifestyles Fashion Ltd and Future Supply Chain Ltd. The Future Group, which was already over-leveraged, suffered a setback due to the nationwide lockdown announced in 2020 to curb the spread of Covid-19. Most of its hypermarket stores located in malls remained shut for several months.
In August 2020, it signed an agreement to sell its entire business to Reliance Industries-linked subsidiaries in a multi-stage transaction, but a series of litigation by ecommerce giant Amazon.com claiming violation of shareholder agreement it had with the company delayed the deal. In March 2022, Reliance Industries took possession of the premises housing some 900 Future Retail stores citing non-payment of rent. In
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