Rohatgi advises fresh bids for DHFL

Mayur.Shetty@timesgroup.com
Mumbai:DHFL lenders are likely to accept revised bids for the troubled mortgage company following a legal opinion received by them from former attorney general Mukul Rohatgi. Sources said that lenders have set December 12 as the deadline for the revised bids.
The legal opinion follows a controversy over Adani Properties revising its bid for the company after the last date for submitting bids.Lenders had published the invitation for expression of interest on January 28 this year, for which the last date was February 17. From the bidders, a list of prospective resolution applicants was prepared, and they were asked to submit resolution plans by September 16. Bidders could either bid for the whole company or parts of it.
Four bidders — Oaktree’s India Opportunities Investment, Piramal Capital & Housing Finance, Adani Properties and SC Lowy had submitted their applications on October 17, which was the extended date for submission. After negotiations with creditors, the four bidders submitted revised plans on November 9. However, in their subsequent bid, the Adani Group had bid for the whole company and not just the projects that they had sought in their earlier bid.
Adani’s bid resulted in the other three bidders protesting and threatening to withdraw their resolution plans. In his opinion, Rohatgi said that the committee of creditors must open all revised bids received, including that of Adani as the idea under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code is to have a healthy competition among applicants and to ensure maximisation of the value of assets of the corporate debtor. Rohatgi has recommended that the creditors give an additional seven days to other bidders to put in a revised bid.