BPL falters on finance rejig

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| Last October, the company had a debt of Rs 435 crore, including a zero per cent loan and zero per cent preference share capital aggregating Rs 294 crore. BPL got $70 million (around Rs 311 crore) from hiving off its CTV business to a equal joint venture with Sanyo. |
| The company utilised this fund towards settlement of secured creditors in pursuance of the scheme of arrangement approved by the Kerala High Court. As a result, the annual interest burden for the company came down to Rs 12 crore from Rs 220 crore. |
| In addition to defaulting on interest payments, the auditors have stated that there were delays in remittance of statutory dues including provident fund, ESIC, customs duty and tax deducted at source. |
| "Customs duty amounting to Rs 4.06 crore is outstanding for a period exceeding six months as on December 31, 2006," they added. |
First Published: Mar 07 2007 | 12:00 AM IST