Arena-Varde Partners and Authum Investment are among the players who have submitted final bids for Srei Infrastructure Finance (SIFL) and Srei Equipment Finance (SEFL). The deadline to submit bids ended on Friday. AM Mining — an affiliate of ArcelorMittal, Capri Global and National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL) had also evinced interest but their final bids could not be confirmed.
ArcelorMittal had placed an expression of interest (EoI) to acquire SIFL and SEFL in an insolvency-driven process.
While the entry of a steel company to bid for struggling NBFCs had surprised many, in August, Srei Infrastructure had moved the Supreme Court against ArcelorMittal acquiring its 253-km slurry pipeline company Odisha Slurry Pipeline Infrastructure (OSPIL) for ₹2,360 crore under the insolvency process after a battle of over three years. OSPIL was set up as a wholly owned subsidiary of Essar and was later hived-off to a clutch of financial lenders, including Srei, for ₹4,000 crore.
Authum Investment has been eyeing the NBFC space for a while now. It had recently acquired debt-ridden Reliance Commercial Finance (RCFL).
The consortium of Varde Partners and Arena Investors had put forward a bid of around ₹14,000 crore in the earlier round. As many as 17 entities had originally submitted their expressions of interest but many of them dropped out of the race subsequently.