UltraTech Cement has received Competition Commission of India approval to acquire Binani Cement.

The company was declared the second-highest bidder, behind Dalmia Bharat Cement, in the bidding for the stressed asset.

The Aditya Birla Group company claimed that a lot of apprehensions had been raised by the resolution professional on it being able to obtain CCI clearance on its bid for Binani Cement, whereas the regulator had cleared the deal on Wednesday.

“UltraTech was rated the H2 (second highest) bidder instead of H1 (highest bidder), for this reason. The CCI clearance validates UltraTech’s contention that they were wrongly and unjustifiably rated H2 instead of H1,” said UltraTech in a statement.

Dalmia cries foul

Mahendra Singhi, Group CEO and Whole Time Director, Dalmia Cement (Bharat), told BusinessLine that the bankers have already taken a ₹600 crore bank guarantee from the company and it would amount to a breach of contract and trust if they changed their decision now.

The bankers cannot strike a deal with the Binani Cement promoters outside the NCLT process as it would breach Section 29A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, which bars defaulting promoters angling for their assets, he added.

“We expect the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to approve our bid as the highest and give its stamp at the next hearing,” said Singhi. Stating that the reasons cited by the unsuccessful bidder for its failed bid are misleading, Singhi said Dalmia Bharat had made the highest financial bid and obtained the highest score in the evaluation.

The CCI approval was contemplated to be a post-NCLT verdict. The only issue was whether any adverse CCI order, imposing penalties, had been passed against any bidder over the last five years. Such penalties had been imposed on Ultratech (and other companies) for alleged cartelisation, in 2016 and 2017.

KK Maheshwari, MD, UltraTech Cement, in an earlier interview with BusinessLine, said that the CCI penalty has been challenged in the Competition Appellate Tribunal and it should in no way concern the resolution professional as the company has since executed three deals and received CCI approvals for the same.

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