Comments
Banks want Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) chairman Vijay Mallya to make a presentation by this month-end on his plans to revive the ailing private carrier. The resolution of KFA’s debt has been eluding bankers for nearly a year now due to the inability of the promoter group to pitch in with equity funding.
Banks don’t want to take further exposure to the airline unless the equity funding comes through. Bankers want to know the airline’s future course of action, including how equity will be infused and its plans to sell-off non-core assets. If no clarity emerges from the presentation banks may take a call on selling off non-core assets on their own, said a banker.
As many as 17 banks, led by State Bank of India, Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Corporation Bank, have a collective loan exposure of more than Rs 7,000 crore to the carrier.
SBI Chairman Pratip Chaudhuri, said “Since we think that it is necessary to have a clearer picture from Mallya himself, another meeting will be scheduled to enable him to attend it…. It is, after all, Kingfisher Airline’s problems and it has to be right in the front trying to solve it.”
The SBI chief said banks will not go by promises or projections alone but would like to see action in the form of capital infusion.
“This is a difficult case as the cumulative losses have been heavy. Hence, nobody should expect a quick solution to this.”
On additional security or collateral that the airline’s promoters could offer, Chaudhari said most of the companies’ assets are largely pledged. Hence, there seems to be no room for topping up of collateral.
He felt that the right thing for Kingfisher to do would be to expand and scale up its operations. The cash-strapped airlines had plans to raise between Rs 90 crore and Rs 100 crore from the sale of its corporate office building in Mumbai.
The company had mortgaged the building to some of the banks of the lending consortium. In a recent report, the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) said the debt-laden airline may have to shut down operations if $600 million cash is not infused in the next two months.
> nivedita.ganguly@thehindu.co.in
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.