Bank of Maharashtra to auction Videocon-backed unit's assets in Tamil Nadu

Companies News

State-owned Bank of Maharashtra has put on sale the assets of Unity Appliances Ltd, a unit backed by Videocon Industries, at SIPCOT industrial estate in Shivaganga, Tamil Nadu, for defaulting on payments.

The outstanding dues of the unit are over Rs 153 crore, plus interest, from January 5, 2018. Unity is involved in manufacturing of air conditioners and refrigerators.

Videocon and its promoter Venugopal Dhoot are guarantors to Unity Appliances, according to an auction notice placed by Pune-based Bank of Maharashtra.

The electronic auction for land and machinery is slated for March 30, 2019 with a reserve price of Rs 42.34 crore for land and Rs 72.82 crore for plant and machinery.

The Videocon group is among 40 large defaulters identified by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) first for insolvency proceedings. The group's core businesses are consumer electronics and oil and gas exploration.

The lenders are auctioning the electronics business estimated to be worth $2 billion.


 The subsidiaries of Videocon Industries are into manufacturing, sale and distribution of consumer goods. Some of the units referred to NCLT include Value Industries, Trend Electronics, KAIL, Millennium Appliances India, Applicomp India, Sky Appliances, Techno Electronics, Century Appliances, PE Electronics, Next Retail, Evans Fraser & Co and Videocon International Electronics.

Videocon loan row: CBI lookout circulars against Chanda Kochhar and husband

Companies News:

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has issued lookout circulars (LOC) against former ICICI Bank chief executive and managing director Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak Kochhar, and Videocon Group's Venugopal Dhoot. The development comes weeks after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) registered a criminal case against them for alleged money laundering .

At the behest of the CBI, lookout circulars were issued against Kochhar's husband and Dhoot for all airports last year. According to The Economics Times, this is the first time LOC has been issued against Chanda Kochhar.

“LOCs were filed after the FIR and are mandatory in cases where such economic offences are alleged. In recent times, keeping an eye on travel plans is a top concern for regulators,” ET quoted the official as saying.

Earlier this month, ED had registered a criminal case for alleged money laundering against Kochhar, her husband, Venugopal Dhoot, and others, to probe alleged irregularities and corrupt practices in sanctioning a Rs 1,875-crore loan by the bank to the corporate group.

They said the central probe agency had filed an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, taking cognizance of a CBI complaint filed on the matter last month.

An ECIR is the ED's equivalent of a police FIR.

The officials said the agency would probe if alleged kickbacks generated in the loan deal were laundered to create tainted assets.
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 The ED is soon expected to summon the accused named in the ECIR. The list of accused in the ED case is the same as that of the CBI, they said.

CBI closes in on Chanda Kochhar, husband in ICICI Bank-Videocon loan case

Finance News:

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has named ICICI Bank’s former managing director and chief executive officer (MD and CEO) Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar, along with his firms, as “accused” in the Rs 3,250-crore Videocon loan case.

The first information report (FIR) registered on Thursday said the accused, including Videocon Industries (VIL) and its chairman and MD, Venugopal Dhoot, sanctioned certain loans to private companies in a criminal conspiracy and cheated ICICI Bank to the tune of Rs 1,730 crore.

Explaining the modus operandi, the CBI said ICICI Bank sanctioned credit facilities of Rs 3,250 crore to several companies belonging to Videocon group such as Trend Electronics, Century Appliances and others which were in violation of the Banking Regulation Act, Reserve Bank of India rules and the bank’s credit policy. The Rs 3,250-crore credit amount was part of a total loan of Rs 40,000 crore sanctioned to the Videocon group by a 20-bank consortium.


 The agency said it had investigated the quid pro quo where Dhoot made an investment of Rs 64 crore in Deepak Kochhar’s NuPower Renewables through his firm Supreme Energy (SEPL). Dhoot also transferred the same to Pinnacle Energy managed by Kochhar through a “circuitous route” between 2010 and 2012...Read More