Sarabjit Kaur
The takeover war for Binani Cement between Dalmia Bharat Group and UltraTech declines to ease as both the bidders remain unperturbed despite the revelation of alleged fraud on the stressed asset and both remain fully committed for acquisition.
The resolution professional (RP) Vijaykumar V Iyer has moved to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), alleging suspect and fraudulent transactions in Binani carried out by an independent forensic auditor.
Dalmia Bharat Group CEO Mahendra Singhi said that the company too had found some suspicious transactions during their internal evaluation but declined to quantify the amount.
At the time when UltraTech was raising questions about transparency of the RP, Singhi had a different view and supported the RP, saying there was no suppression of fact by the RP and a transparent process was followed.
“A full lawful transparent process had been followed by the RP and Committee of Creditors (CoC) and accordingly all the bidders participated and now Dalmia has submitted the 10 per cent performance bank guarantee of the winning bid amount with the CoC,” he said.
The bid amount of Dalmia Bharat is between Rs 6,500 to 6,600 crore.
Singhi wondered whether UltraTech would join hands with Binani in the wake of the alleged fraud.
According to him, there is no legal provision under the insolvency and bankruptcy code to takeout the case which is already an admitted asset with the NCLT.
UltraTech CFO Atul Daga said that though he had not seen those details of the alleged fraud, but said even then they remain interested on the asset.
“Whatever revelation has come has taken place in the past and we want to start with a clean slate,” Daga said.
However, he still believes there was lack of transparency and the situation has cropped as UltraTech was not called for revised regulations before the voting of the CoC.
Singhi claimed that they have also taken care of small operational creditors but some of the MSME operational creditors have moved an application that their concerns were not addressed.
However, the counsel representing these small operational creditors said their interest was not taken care of and the amount involved would be about Rs 700 crore.
