The bankruptcy court has approved the proposal from a consortium of Himadri Speciality Chemical and Dalmia Bharat Refractories to acquire Kolkata-based Birla Tyres.
Lenders of Birla Tyres had earlier cleared the consortium’s Rs 347 crore resolution plan for the listed firm with an 82.48% voting. The company has admitted liabilities of more than Rs 1,662 crore.
“Our idea is to go in a niche space rather than get into the run-on-the-mill products. We are targeting EV (electric vehicle) and other niche speciality tyre space,” said Anurag Choudhary, chairman and managing director of Himadri Speciality Chemical. “With this acquisition, we are also achieving forward integration for our business,” he said. “We are evaluating various possibilities to use clean and green power generated in our existing facility to be transmitted to Birla Tyres for its power requirement.”
Last year in May, Birla Tyres was admitted for the insolvency resolution process in an application filed by its operational creditor, chemicals firm SRF.
As many as 19 parties had shown interest to buy the company, but the resolution professional (RP) received only two revival plans: one by the Dalmia Bharat Refractories-Himadri Speciality Chemical consortium and the other from Melrose Creations in consortium with Stephen Financial Services.
The Melrose Creations consortium plan was not considered due to the non-submission of a bank guarantee. Dalmia Bharat had informed the lenders about the inclusion of Himadri Speciality Chemicals as a ‘strategic partner’ for the acquisition. “The moratorium imposed under Section 14 shall cease to have effect from the date of this order,” said the Kolkata bench of the National Company Law Tribunal, comprising judicial member Bidisha Banerjee and technical member Arvind Devanathan. “The Resolution Plan is binding on corporate debtor and other stakeholders involved so that revival of the debtor company shall come into force with immediate effect,” the October 19 order said.
Source: Economic Times