Excerpts from CNBC-TV18’s exclusive interview with Ajay Singh:

Q: Could you tell us how much stake WL Ross will pick up for Rs 345 crore?

A: It’s an offer that Wilber Ross has made yesterday which the board of SpiceJet has accepted. In terms of the structure of the deal; the deal is still subject to final documentation which we expect will take about weeks and the structure; we will decide at that point after the final deal is signed - we will share the structure with you. At this time we are not commenting on the structure.    

Q: There will surely be an open offer because your current marketcap is Rs 670 crore and they are pumping in more than half of that?

A: Under the structure we expect that there will be no requirement of an open offer. But we will discuss the structure once the final documentation is done.

Q: Anything more than 15% will trigger an open offer…

A: We do not believe that there will be a requirement of an open offer.

Q: Could you explain that?

A: As I said we are not disclosing the structure at this point. Once the deal is finally signed and all approvals that we need to take are taken at that point we will share the structure.

Q: We conclude that WL Ross will then own less than 15% of SpiceJet?

A: Yes clearly; if they own more than 15% of SpiceJet, there would be an open offer.

Q: There are couple of large stakeholders as well at this point in SpiceJet including Tata Group. Are all the other large stakeholders on the same page? Will they be tendering their stage in order to WL Ross to pick up whatever they indicated about might be?

A: At this time all the large stakeholders of SpiceJet intend to remain in SpiceJet. We have not heard anything to the contrary from any large stakeholder. So all the speculative stories in terms of large investors exiting; we do not think there is much credence to them.

Q: You are saying that the Tata Group and Istithmar will continue to hold the stake that they do right now in SpiceJet?

A: That’s right.

Q: What’s the current foreign holding right now in SpiceJet?

A: There is significant headroom. As one would know that any foreign holding acquired through the secondary market is not counted towards the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) cap, the government has imposed and I feel that there is significant headroom.

Q: Without disclosing the exact structure can we infer that some of the money that WL Ross is putting in would be in the form of debt and not equity then as well?

A: As I said I do not want to comment at all on the structure.   

Q: You are leaving your shareholders very confused because on current share…

A: From shareholders perspective I think it’s a positive development that a large investments should be made in the company; it’s a great vote of confidence in the SpiceJet model as well in the medium to long-term prospects of both SpiceJet and the Indian aviation sector. So we think it’s a significant move forward for SpiceJet and will be greatly to the benefit of our existing shareholders.

Q: By doing the math, your shareholders would conclude that an open offer has to come but you are telling them it won’t come. So don’t you think you owe it to your investors to tell them why the open offer won’t come?

A: We certainly will be; once the deal is done and it’s concluded and all the documentation is gone, we certainly will be informing our shareholders.