The Hindu Business Line : Domestic, foreign lenders of DPC to meet today

DOMESTIC and foreign lenders to the Dabhol Power Company are expected to come together for a "conclusive" meeting on Wednesday and Thursday here to decide on the final price at which the foreign debt would be handed over to the domestic financial institutions.

Representatives of the US-Government lending agency OPIC are also expected to attend the meeting, an institutional source said.

"The meeting will hopefully seal the deal for Indian lenders," the source said. He was speaking about the amount at which Indian lenders will buy out debt owed by DPC to foreign lenders - OPIC, ABN Amro, Citi, Credit Lyonnais, ANZ, Bank of America, Bank of Novascotia, Toronto-Dominion, Bayerjsche Landes, Erste Bank, CSFB, Sakura, Sumitomo, Development Bank of Singapore, StanChart, BNP, Deutsche and KBC Bank.

Foreign lenders' exposure to DPC is about $90 million for the first phase and $272 million for the second phase. Indian lenders have cumulatively loaned the rest of the $1.9 billion debt to the power project, originally promoted by Enron Corporation, that has been lying idle since May 2001 following a payment dispute between DPC and customer MSEB.

GE and Bechtel, earlier 10 per cent minority partners in the project, have also taken over Enron's 65 per cent in DPC following a US bankruptcy court order in April.

Indian lenders, including lead lenders IDBI, ICICI, SBI, and Canara Bank who are responsible for maintenance of the 2,184-MW power plant and LNG terminal, had hoped to sell the bankrupt project to another sponsor after taking over foreign loans through a special purpose vehicle.

The lenders had resumed first round of discussions in the last week of April this year at Singapore, while the second round was held in London more than two weeks ago.

"Even the last meeting was a very serious one. The American banks seem to be going along with the Indian plans. But European banks may require some more convincing," said a source from a financial institution.

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