Bhushan Power creditors to consider revised bids today

The Committee of Creditors will consider the revised bids for Bhushan Power and Steel on Tuesday as the deadline for three final bidders – JSW Steel, Tata Steel and Liberty House – to revise their bids ended on Monday.

The race to acquire the stressed Bhushan Power, which defaulted on ₹47,000 crore loan, took an interesting turn after JSW Steel increased its bid to ₹19,000 crore from ₹11,000 crore, a day before CoC was suppose to place all the highest bid for voting.

The revision of bids by JSW Steel is expected to push the value of assets and the lenders are expected to receive bids in excess of ₹22,000 crore, said sources in the know.

Tata Steel, which had bid ₹17,500 crore, was declared as the highest bidder even as Liberty House offered to shell out ₹18,000 crore upfront. The delay in Liberty House backing its offer with bank guarantee tilted the scale in favour of Tata Steel even after the former rectified its short-comings.

Despite Tata Steel objection, the National Company Law Tribunal directed the CoC to consider all the bids and a week’s time for all the three bidders to revise the bids. However, Tata Steel went to the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal challenging the NCLT decision to consider revised bids.

Turning down Tata Steel concerns, NCLAT directed the three companies to change their financial bid and submit it before August 13. The CoC will consider the revised bids on Tuesday and submit the highest and second highest bidder’s name to NCLAT, which will hear the case on August 17.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court last Friday refused to stay the NCLAT order that allowed the three bidders to submit revised bids. A bench led by justice RF Nariman directed the NCLAT to “hear and pass final orders as expeditiously as possible” and also asked the lawyers not to seek any adjournment on August 17, the day the appellate tribunal is slated to hear the case.

Bhushan Power has an installed capacity of 3.5 million tonnes per annum in Odisha, and three downstream units. Justifying the aggressive bidding for the asset, sources said the name plate capacity of the plant can be raised to 5 mtpa at an additional investment of ₹1,500 crore to up to 5 mt.