ArcelorMittal has agreed to pay a total of Rs 50,000 crore, including a Rs 8000-crore capital infusion, to acquire Essar Steel, as bankers started voting on its offer. Electronic voting started at 4 pm Tuesday. Banks have 24 hours to support or reject the offer.
“As per the offer, secured creditors are about to receive Rs 39,400 crore as cash up front and also Rs 2,500 crore cash into the company, which takes the total cash amount to Rs 42,000 crore. Besides this, Arcelor has offered to infuse up to Rs 8,000 crore later,” said a person involved in negotiations.
A meeting of the committee of creditors, which started late on Monday at St Regis Hotel, ended in the wee hours of Tuesday as bankers, lawyers and representative of ArcelorMittal finalised contours of the deal, which includes payments to unsecured creditors and full repayment to small operational creditors with dues of up to Rs 1 crore. Workmen and employees are owed Rs 18 crore and will also be paid in full, according to the agreement.
Secured lenders will get Rs 42,000 crore on total debt of Rs 49,000, a recovery of almost 86% for the steel asset — one of the highest among the 12 dragged to insolvency court by Reserve Bank of India’s first list of defaulters. “This is the best deal we could have got. I have already given my consent for this plan. I think the decision by lenders will be close to unanimous because it cannot get better than this,” said a top executive of a lender who has an outstanding principle of Rs 1,500 crore to Essar Steel. He expects to get back his full principle and “a substantial part” of interest.
CAVEAT WITH NCLT
In a separate development, resolution professional of GPI Textiles — promoted by Lakshmi Mittal’s brother Pramod Mittal — has filed a caveat with NCLT Ahmedabad, saying the resolution plan submitted by ArcelorMittal is “illegal/incorrect”. GPI Textiles is battling insolvency and is now under management of resolution professional Jalesh Kumar Grover.
It is unclear how bankers will react to this new injunction. A person close to ArcelorMittal said, “The company has already said, on several occasions, that there is absolutely no connection between ArcelorMittal’s eligibility and the businesses of Mittal’s brothers. The fact that ArcelorMittal has been selected H1 bidder by the committee of creditors of Essar Steel demonstrates that it has done what was required to satisfy the eligibility criteria. This matter has been addressed by the Supreme Court already.”
State Bank of India and Edelweiss ARC are the top two debt holders in Essar, with outstanding principle of Rs 13,652 crore and Rs 5,473 crore, respectively. The duo makes up about 35% of vote and will help in swinging things in favour of ArcelorMittal. A resolution proposal needs approval from 66% of creditors. Results of the electronic voting will be out Wednesday evening.
Source: Economic Times