From roads to radio units, Anil Ambani group mulls $3.2-bn distress sale

International News

Indian tycoon Anil Ambani plans to raise about Rs 217 billion ($3.2 billion) by selling assets from roads to radio stations in a bid to cut debt.
The breakdown is like this, according to the group spokesman:
Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. is seeking Rs 90 billion from the sale of nine road projects.
Reliance Capital Ltd. aims to raise Rs 12 billion by selling its radio unit, and Rs 115 billion from monetizing its holdings in the financial business.
Ambani is waging a war on debt. He said on June 11 that his Reliance Group repaid Rs 350 billion in the past 14 months through asset disposals.
But a large pile remains. The four biggest group companies still have about Rs 939 billion of debt. And that excludes Reliance Communications Ltd., Ambani’s former flagship firm, that recently slipped into insolvency.
Further asset sales would help Ambani bolster the financial health of his group’s companies after a string of setbacks that included an auditor resigning at one of the firms and plunging stock prices at others. Rating cuts have also flagged credit market concerns.
Quick closure

 Quick closure of the planned asset sales is key. CARE Ratings had pointed to delays in divestments at Reliance Capital in an April statement while cutting the financier’s rating.Reliance Communications’ 2017 deal to sell its telecom assets to Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., owned by Anil’s elder brother Mukesh Ambani, was scrapped earlier this year...Read More

Anil Ambani may sell or lease out Mumbai headquarters to pare debt: Report

Company News

Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani is in talks with Blackstone and a US-based fund to sell or lease out his headquarters in Santacruz, Mumbai, in a deal that may be worth upwards of Rs 1,500 crore, the Economic Times reported on Monday. However, the deal may be marred by a legal tangle that the property is involved in, the report added.
Several companies of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) are in legal crosshairs for not paying back debt. As of March 2018, the group’s consolidated debt stood at Rs 1.72 trillion. The figures as of March 2019 are not available as group companies like Reliance Infrastructure are yet to declare results for Q4FY19, as reported earlier by Business Standard.
Last month, Anil Ambani said his group has paid Rs 35,000 crore in the 14 months from April 1, 2018 till May 31 this year to lenders. These payments comprise principal repayments of Rs 24,800 crore and interest payments of Rs 10,600 crore. The group raised funds by selling assets, he said.
Ambani said this amount included debt servicing payments by Reliance Capital, Reliance Power and Reliance Infrastructure, and their respective affiliates. "These payments have been made in the face of insurmountable odds and the most challenging financial environment witnessed in the country in decades,” Ambani said in a conference call.

 Ambani said in the last 14 months lenders from all categories - whether banks, mutual funds, insurance companies, provident funds or NBFCs - have not provided any net additional liquidity or debt to any entity of the Reliance Group. “To compound matters, the regulatory bodies and courts have not passed any final adjudication orders on claims aggregating to over Rs 30,000 crore that are due for more than 5 - 10 years to various Group companies, especially Reliance Infrastructure Ltd and Reliance Power Ltd, and their affiliates,” he said. The final decisions have only been inordinately and repeatedly delayed for one reason or the other, Ambani added.

Maruti Suzuki total sales slip 14% in June, domestic sales down 15%

Company News

Maruti Suzuki India Monday reported a 14 per cent decline in total sales at 1,24,708 units in June as against 1,44,981 units in the same month last year.
Domestic sales during the month were down 15.3 per cent at 1,14,861 units last month compared to 1,35,662 units in June last year, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) said in a statement.
Mini segment, comprising Alto and old WagonR, saw a slide of 36.2 per cent to 18,733 units as against 29,381 per cent in the year-ago month.
The compact segment, which includes models such as New WagonR, Celerio, Ignis, Swift, Baleno and Dzire, clocked 62,897 units last month as compared to 71,570 units in the same month last year, down 12.1 per cent.
In the mid segment, the company said its sedan Ciaz sales were up 47.1 per cent at 2,322 units from 1,579 units in June last year.
Sales of utility vehicles, including Gypsy, Ertiga, Vitara Brezza, S-Cross, were at 17,797 units in June as compared to 19,321 units in the year-ago month, down 7.9 per cent, MSI added.
MSI said its van sales, comprising Omni and Eeco models, were also down 24 per cent at 9,265 units as against 12,185 units in the same month last year.
Sales of light commercial vehicle Super Carry were, however, up 24 per cent at 2,017 units as compared to 1,626 units in June last year, the company said.

 Exports were also up 5.7 per cent last month at 9,847 units as against 9,319 units in June 2018, MSI added.

Anil Ambani-promoted RInfra loses NTPC order worth Rs 567 crore to GE

Company News

While Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Infrastructure looks to almost double its existing order-book in the current financial year, not all is well with its existing orders. One of RInfra's contracts worth Rs 567 crore from NTPC has been re-tendered and awarded to another company this month.
In February 2018, RInfra informed exchanges it has received the Letter of Approval from NTPC for Flue Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) works of its 3x500 Mw power plant in Jhajjar, Haryana. “The project has been re-tendered and awarded to GE,” said a person with knowledge of the development. The reason for re-tendering is not clear. An email query sent to RInfra last week remained unanswered.
On June 4, GE Power informed exchanges it has won a contract worth Rs 738 crore from Aravali Power Company for Flue Gas Desulphurisation. Aravali Power is a Joint venture company of NTPC, Haryana Power Generation Company and Indraprastha Power Generation Company, which holds the Jhajjar power plant in Haryana.
In its post results media interaction, RInfra pegged its total order book at over Rs 28,000 crore. Queries sent to RInfra on the status of the NTPC projects and whether Rs 28,000 crore includes the project remained unanswered.

 For the current financial year, RInfra looks to increase its order book to close to Rs 50,000 crore. In its June 2019 presentation, the company said it targeting opportunities of about Rs 3 trillion in FY20 and bids participation in projects of Rs one trillion and is poised to build order book of Rs 50,000 crore.The other projects that RInfra is executing include the Versova-Bandra Sea Link, a package for Mumbai Nagpur Expressway, parts of the Mumbai-Metro network, Hirasar airport project in Gujarat and the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project. Of these, the Sea-link project for Rs 7,000 crore is also facing land and other clearance issues unrelated to RInfra.

RP takes over RCom board; corporate insolvency resolution process to resume

Company News

Following the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) directive, Reliance Communications (RCom) on Wednesday informed the stock exchanges that the administration of the corporate debtor would be taken over by the interim resolution professional (RP) and the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) would resume.

“The powers of the board of directors or the partners of the corporate debtor, as the case may be, shall stand suspended and be exercised by the interim resolution professional,” the company said in the filing.

The NCLT has also directed the interim RP to file a progress report of the CIRP. The next hearing is on May 30.

Operational creditor Ericsson, in September 2017, had originally filed for insolvency proceedings against RCom. This was accepted by the NCLT over RCom's failure to pay dues to the tune of Rs 1,500 crore. However, it was later stayed by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) as both parties reached a settlement, with RCom agreeing to pay Rs 550 crore to Ericsson by September 30, 2018.

Meanwhile, RCom moved the Supreme Court, seeking an extension of the deadline to pay the amount to Ericsson because of a delay in completion of spectrum sale and other assets, to which the apex court granted it time till December 15, 2018.

After RCom had failed to pay the agreed amount, Ericsson moved the apex court wherein the court ordered Anil Ambani, Reliance Telecom Chairman Satish Seth, and Reliance Infratel Chairperson Chhaya Virani to pay Rs 453 crore within four weeks (March 18, 2019) or face a jail term of three months.

Ambani had paid by the deadline.

 Ericsson was opposed to RCom’s move of undergoing insolvency proceedings as it would then have to let go of the money it received.

Mukesh Ambani world's 10th richest with networth of $54 bn: Hurun Report

Companies News:

With a networth of $54 billion, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani has broken into the global top 10 richest billionaire list complied by Hurun Research.

"The only Asian in the Top 10, Ambani's wealth is based on telecom, retail and energy, and bucked the poor stock market trend in India last year," Hurun Research said in a statement.
The Hurun Global Rich List 2019 is topped by Amazon chief Jeff Bezos for the second year in a row, while the senior Ambani is placed 10th with a network of Rs 3.83 trillion, thanks to a rally in RIL shares, which had topped the Rs 8-lakh-crore-mark last month. Ambani owns almost 52 percent in Reliance.

Anil Ambani, held in contempt of court by the Supreme Court last week for not paying up Ericsson Rs 540 crore, has lost over $5 billion, from $7 billion seven years ago to $1.9 billion this year, even though both the brothers got off with more or less same amount of inherited wealth.
"Having started off similarly after the break-up of the family wealth, Mukesh added $30 billion to his wealth in the past seven years, while Anil has lost over $5 billion during the same period," says the Hurun report.

Other individuals from India who were named in the list include S P Hinduja (40th), Azim Premji (57) and Cyrus Poonawalla.

Cyrus S Poonawalla, chairman of the Poonawalla group that run Serum Institute, with a networth of $13 billion is not only ranked as the fourth richest Indian but also breaks into the top 100 global ranking.


 Steel giant ArcelorMittal's Lakshmi Mittal stands at fifth position, followed by Kotak Mahindra's Uday Kotak ($11 billion), Gautam Adani ($9.9 billion) and Sun Pharma's Dilip Shanghvi ($9.5 billion)...Read More