Patanjali has made an all unsolicited all cash offer of Rs 830 crore just days after Pune based Ashdan Properties’s Rs 760 crore offer on a net present value (NPV) basis was declared the highest bidder by banks.
A Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has okayed rebids for the debt laden Rolta India, letting Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Ayurved to make an offer for the company.
Patanjali has made an all unsolicited all cash offer of Rs 830 crore just days after Pune based Ashdan Properties’s Rs 760 crore offer on a net present value (NPV) basis was declared the highest bidder by banks. The court said that it is best that all applicants who had expressed interest should be given an opportunity.
Patanjali Ayurved’s unexpected interest of a FMCG company in a defence-focused software company has raised queries. Founded in 1989 by Kamal K Singh, Rolta India deals in GIS and geospatial services for the defence sector.
The company is part of a consortium with state-owned Bharat Electronics and was selected as a development agency for over Rs 50,000 crore worth Battlefield Management System project by the Ministry of Defence in 2015.
The project, was, shelved in in 2018, leaving Rolta India under a debt pile. Rolta India landed in insolvency court in September 2018 when Union Bank of India had filed a petition before the NCLT Mumbai.
Rolta India has a total outstanding debt of around Rs 14,000 crore. It owes Union Bank of India-led consortium a total of Rs 7,100 crore and another Rs 6,699 crore to unsecured foreign bond holders led by Citigroup.
Patanjali terms Rolta move as strategic. Rolta India’s real-estate assets hold more value than its software division. The commpany reportedly owns prime real-estate properties in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Vadodara. In Mumbai, it owns a freehold building of almost 40,000 square feet, four leasehold buildings of over 1 lakh square feet area (in total) in MIDC, Andheri East (Mumbai), according to an ET report.
