A consortium of Maharashtra state government-owned power generation company Mahagenco and public sector NTPC has emerged as the top bidder to take over the 1,350 MW Sinnar Thermal Power plant near Nashik.
Mahagenco’s bid of Rs 3,800 crore is above the second-placed Adani Power in the initial round of bids. Lenders are evaluating legal and other compliances of the bidders, following which negotiations with individual bidders will start, said people familiar with the process.
“The early bids put the Mahagenco-NTPC partnership at the top. The second-placed bidder is behind as its bid is less than Rs 3,000 crore. But the plans are still at the initial stage and we could see revisions since all parties interested are serious players in this sector,” said a person familiar with the process. Resolution professional (RP) Rahul Jindal did not reply to an email seeking comment.
Commodities company Vedanta Group, Naveen Jindal’s Jindal Power, Kolkata-based Orissa Metaliks and Varde Partners’ Singapore-based arm VFSI Holdings are among seven companies that have made a formal bid to take over the distressed 1,350 MW Sinnar Thermal Power. Individual bidders could not be contacted.
The Mahagenco-NTPC combine is best placed because it runs the 2,190 MW Koradi power plant near Nagpur and can use its existing infrastructure to supply coal and run the plant.
The power plant, a subsidiary of RattanIndia Power, was initially developed by Indiabulls Power and was admitted to insolvency in January following a plea by Shapoorji Pallonji & Co for non-payment of dues after constructing a part of the plant. All bidders have submitted an initial resolution plan, including a Rs 10 crore deposit.
BoB Caps, the investment banking arm of Bank of Baroda, is the advisor to the committee of creditors (CoC), while Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co is the legal advisor. Trilegal is the legal advisor to the RP.
Power Finance Corp (Rs 6,553 crore) and its subsidiary REC (Rs 5,262 crore) are the top two creditors of the company, which owes total dues of Rs 15,909 crore. Punjab National Bank, Axis Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of India and Life Insurance Corp are other creditors to the company.
Although only one unit of 270 MW has achieved commercial operations and the remaining four units have worked at full load for only a few hours, this is a rare power producer readily available in India, where building a greenfield project is both time-consuming and expensive. Though the plant is now defunct, it has 1,600 acres around it, which means any company buying it can double its capacity by adding another 1,350 MW.
Right-of-way issues and lack of railway linkage to the plant will have to be factored in by any prospective buyer. Coal has been a major challenge for Sinnar since December 2022, when the South Eastern Coalfields cancelled the coal supply contract citing the non-availability of PPA and non-commissioning of the majority of units of the plant. Sinnar’s PPA with Mahadiscom was cancelled a few years ago.
Source: Economic Times