The Committee of Creditors (CoC) of Jet Airways on Monday decided to extend the deadline to receive expressions of interest (EoIs) for acquiring the airline to August 31. This has been done to accommodate a potential bid from South America’s Synergy Group.

Synergy Group Corp, a conglomerate owned by Germán Efromovich, is headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It operates several airlines in South America including Avianca Holdings.

Though Synergy Group has not made a formal bid so far, Grant Thornton Advisory’s Ashish Chhawchharia, who has been appointed Jet’s resolution professional (RP), will engage with it to gauge its interest levels.

The last date to submit the EoIs was August 10. Jet had received EoI from three players — Anil Agarwal’s family trust Volcan Investments, Panama-based investment firm Avantulo Group, and Russian fund Treasury RA Creator.

However, a day later, Volcan withdrew its EoI. Avantulo Group did not make it to the short-list. RA Creator has not signed a non-disclosure agreement so far although it has submitted documents which were asked for by Chhawchharia.

Last-ditch effort

According to industry watchers, extending the deadline could be a last-ditch effort to find a new owner for Jet. “The airline has lost most of its value. If the RP is unable to find a suitable buyer the last option would be to liquidate the company. Jet does not own much of its assets as it had leased most of the aircraft. The only thing of value will be the routes but recoveries from selling the routes may not be enough to settle its debt,” said an industry player.

Issues related to interim funding were also discussed at the CoC meeting today.

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