The ICICI Bank-led consortium of lenders has initiated the process to find a buyer for the debt-ridden defence firm ABG Shipyard to change its management.
After Strategic Debt Restructuring (SDR) norms were invoked in October last year, a consortium of 22-lenders took control of 51 percent stake in the company which has loan dues worth Rs 16,400 crore.
The consortium has now decided to change management and sell the company to a prospective buyer. ABG Shipyard informed the development in a notice to the BSE on Wednesday.
The lenders have got impatient by the slow movement of finding new buyers by ABG Shipyard and have initiated the process to find a buyer by themselves, according to the notice.
The notice also says that “certain entities (or the prospective bidders) have been shortlisted and approved by lenders”.
According to media reports, Reliance Defence and Engineering Ltd, Shapoorji Pallonji Group and Liberty House Group of UK have shown interest in acquiring the company.
Banks authorised Rishi Agarwal, Chairman, S Muthuswamy, Executive Director and Hasmukh Daftary, CFO to share information regarding the business and operation of the company, some of which could be price sensitive.
Of all the lenders, ICICI Bank has the highest stake in the company at 11 percent, followed by IDBI Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce.
A joint lenders’ forum (JLF) decided to invoke rights of the lenders to acquire majority stake in the company by converting part of their debt into equity under the SDR scheme. Under this RBI bad-loan resolution scheme, lenders are allowed to take controlling stake and change ownership of a defaulting company by converting debt into equity at a market related price and sell it to prospective buyers within 18 months.
In 2013, the consortium had also unsuccessfully tried to recover loans under the Corporate Debt Restructuring (CDR) scheme.
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