Future group firms to convene shareholder, creditors meeting in April

Listed companies of the Kishore Biyani-led Future group on Saturday informed exchanges about meetings of their respective shareholders and creditors being convened on April 20 and 21 to get their approval for the Rs 24,713-crore deal with Reliance Retail.

Listed entities, including Future Enterprises Ltd, Future Retail Ltd, Future Consumer Ltd and Future Supply Chain, informed exchanges about dates and other procedures for the virtual meetings of shareholders and creditors.

The meetings are held virtually through video conferencing and other audio-visual means, the addendum notice added.

According to the order passed by the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on February 28, the meeting of the shareholders would be held on April 20. The meeting to seek the approval of creditors would be held on the next day, April 21, 2022.

The NCLT had given a go-ahead for convening meetings of shareholders and creditors of respective Future group companies for approval of the scheme of merger and transfer of the business to Reliance Retail.

As part of the deal, Future Enterprises Limited is the transferee company to Reliance Retail.

Future Group's 19 companies operating in retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing assets would be consolidated into one entity, FEL, and then transferred to Reliance.

In August 2020, Future Group had announced the Rs 24,713 crore deal to transfer its retail, wholesale and logistics arms to Reliance Retail.

However, the deal could not be closed as Future's warring partner Amazon went to courts citing violation of some contracts. Future denies any wrongdoing.

After the deal was stuck in a series of litigations and arbitrations, the long-stop date for the Scheme has already been extended by six months to 30th September 2022 by Reliance, FRL had informed last week.

This is the third extension of timeline by Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL), the retail arm of Reliance Industries, for completing its Rs 24,713 crore deal with the Future group.

Earlier, RRVL had extended the timeline from September 30, 2021, to March 31, 2022. The first long stop date was March 31, 2021, which was extended to September 30, 2021.

Earlier in February, Reliance Retail had took over the operations of at least 300 stores of Future Retail and offered jobs to its employees after the Kishore Biyani-led group failed to make lease payments to landlords.

Later, Future Retail Ltd had on March 16 said it is "committed" to reversal of takeover of its stores by Reliance Retail and will take all such action as may be necessary to seek value adjustments.

The Kishore Biyani-led firm also said the action of the Reliance Group has come as a "surprise" to it.