Lenders to Jet Airways have time till 16 October to vote on two proposals to revive the stressed airline. The deadline may get extended if banks fail to get internal approvals, according to a person familiar with the matter.
This comes after reports said the consortium of Kalrock Capital and Murari Lal Jalan has emerged as the successful resolution applicant in the corporate insolvency resolution process.
In a stock exchange notification, the resolution professional of the airline Ashish Chhawchharia clarified that the committee of creditors has not concluded the e-voting on the final resolution plans submitted by two shortlisted bidders.
The company also added that the Jalan-Kalrock consortium has intimated the resolution professional that it has not made any statement claiming to have been chosen as the successful resolution applicant.
“Voting will be on till October 16 and lenders would need to get approval from their respective boards before casting vote. If this exercise is not completed, then the deadline could get pushed beyond October 16,” said the person cited earlier.
For the revival plan to go through, the company will have to secure 66% of the votes of the lenders, who are part of the committee of creditors. Once the resolution plan is approved by the majority of the committee of creditors, the RP will move an application in the National Company Law Tribunal for its approval.
The clarification comes after The Economic Times carried a report quoting a company official that London-based asset management company Kalrock Capital and UAE investor Murari Lal Jalan have been chosen as the new owners of the bankrupt airline.
Jet Airways had received bids from two consortiums, one comprising UK-based Kalrock Capital and UAE-based entrepreneur Murari Lal Jalan, and the other by Haryana-based Flight Simulation Technique Centre, Mumbai-based Big Charter and Abu Dhabi’s Imperial Capital Investments LLC. One of the two had sought more time to revise the bid upwards, and lenders had agreed to give more time for both parties to submit revised bids.
The carrier was admitted to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in June 2019.
Since then, the committee of creditors has met 16 times. The insolvency process for Jet Airways, which was grounded in April 2019, due to an acute fund crunch, was supposed to be completed by June this year. The deadline was first extended to 21 August due to lockdown curbs, and then extended for an unspecified time by lenders-appointed resolution professional for the airline, Ashish Chhawchharia.
