Nine entities, including US private equity major Oaktree Capital, Torrent group, Hinduja group, and a consortium of Piramal group and Cosmea Financial Holdings have submitted final bids for the whole of Reliance Capital and its subsidiaries, two people aware of the matter said. Monday was the last date for submitting the final bids.
While Piramal and Cosmea have jointly bid for Reliance Capital, Piramal Group will bear the financial liabilities only towards Reliance General Insurance and Reliance Health Insurance.
UV Special Situation Fund has also made an offer for Reliance Capital on a fee basis, on the condition that it would sell Reliance Capital’s assets and repay lenders.
Creditors of Reliance Capital had offered two options: Under the first option, companies had to bid for Reliance Capital as a whole, including its subsidiaries. Under the second option, bidders could separately go for individual businesses of Reliance Capital.
Jindal Power Ltd has under the second option bid for Reliance Capital’s non-banking financial company (NBFC) business, real estate and Reliance Securities. Choice Securities Ltd and Arthum Investments have separately bid for both real estate and the securities businesses.
Apart from Reliance Capital as a whole, the administrator had put 51% stake in Reliance Nippon Life Insurance, 100% stake in general insurance and the licence for health insurance business on sale. Japan’s Nippon Life Corp, which owns 49% in Reliance Nippon Life Insurance, did not make an offer for the life insurance venture separately.
Zurich Insurance and US-based private equity investor Advent International, which had earlier submitted non-binding bids for Reliance General Insurance in the initial round, stayed away in the final round.
Birla Sun Life Insurance too backed out after Nippon Life opposed a merger with the Indian firm.
As many 55 companies had submitted their expressions of interest in February to bid for Reliance Capital’s assets. Of these, only 14 companies submitted non-binding bids by August end.
Reliance Capital was sent for debt resolution under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code in November last year after it defaulted on bank loans. The NBFC has a consolidated debt of nearly ₹40,000 crore.
Torrent Group, which runs Torrent Power and Torrent Pharmaceuticals, aims to enter the financial services sector with this bid. Piramal Enterprises, which had acquired assets of Dewan Housing Finance last year, is interested in the insurance business.
