The State Bank of India has extended the deadline for sale of Rs 15,432 crore of Essar Steel loans. The lender has also extended the deadline for submission of expression of interest (EoIs) in Essar Steel loan sale to January 30.
SBI will now conduct e-bidding for sale of Essar Steel loans on February 11.
The bank has said that it has extended the deadline on requests of many interested bidders.
Meanwhile, with insolvency process of Essar Steel appearing to be on a drag, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) Wednesday ordered the Ahmedabad-bench of company law court to give by January 31 a final decision on lenders approving ArcelorMittal’s Rs 42,000 crore takeover proposal of the indebted steelmaker.
Rivalling ArcelorMittal is a last-minute offer by shareholders of Essar Steel to pay all of the Rs 54,389 crore dues of both financial and operational creditors.
The Committee of Essar Steel Creditors, however, ignored the Rs 54,389 crore offer which was made months after bids by potential takeover candidates had come in and chosen ArcelorMittal as the resolution applicant for recovering their Rs 50,800 crore of dues. This was then submitted to the National Company Law Tribunal in Ahmedabad which was overseeing the insolvency process.
To complicate things, operational creditors filed petitions in NCLT wanting ArcelorMittal to pay all of their dues like what Essar Steel shareholders had promised or its bid be rejected. Essar Steel shareholders too moved NCLT for consideration of their offer which they said was done under recently introduced Section 12A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) that allows for withdrawal of companies from the process if lenders agreed.