Sahara to sell 4 local assets for Rs 2,700 crore

SC asks group to give more details on foreign hotel deals

The Supreme Court allowed the Sahara group on Tuesday to sell a property in Choma village near Gurgaon at a price 15 per cent lower than the value estimated earlier. This was part of a set of four domestic properties with a combined worth of around Rs 2,700 crore that the group was allowed to sell as part of its efforts to secure bail for its chief Subrata Roy.

The other properties situated in Jodhpur, Vasai and Pune are being sold at values within the five per cent margin permitted by the court in June. Sahara submitted three demand drafts and cheque for a sum of Rs 184.5 crore as a down payment for these sales. The remaining sale consideration from these properties is expected to be received by May 2015.

The court further directed the group to address questions raised by Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) counsel Arvind Datar and amicus curiae Shekhar Naphade on the three-way loan agreement involving the overseas assets the group has proposed to raise the bank guarantee required for the release of Roy.

The group has sought to bring in a new lender to replace Bank of China, which at present has a lien over the hotel assets, and raise a fresh junior loan of $650 million.

Naphade said, “My friend says so much money will come. But from the documents produced , we are not able to verify that.” He also pointed out that the escrow account through which this arrangement will operate was subject to US laws. He expressed concerns that the junior loan being raised was at a higher interest rate and was for a period of 364 days only. “What happens after these 364 days?” he asked.

Datar questioned why the group was coming out with such arrangements when it had demanded and got special facilities to negotiate sale of the foreign assets. “Unless you can demonstrate that sale was an impossibility, where is the question of junior loan?” he asked. He also said that Sebi had received e-mails from buyers about the offers they had given, but Sahara did not deal with them because it was not happy with the “credibility of the buyer”.

Datar wondered, “How are you bothered?” Judge T S Thakur came to the rescue saying, “The buyer should have deep pockets.” S Ganesh, Sahara’s counsel, readily agreed saying, “That is the only credibility we are bothered about. Many of these offers were much below the valuation we were negotiating.” The judges also observed that the possibility of appointing an asset manager who could oversee the sale of assets, if they were to fetch a higher value could be explored.

“It’s all taken you nowhere. If it’s difficult for you, can we assist you? Can an asset management company be asked to take over?” Thakur asked.

According to a March order, Sahara has to deposit Rs 5,000 crore in cash and an equal sum in bank guarantee to secure bail for Roy and two directors of Sahara India Real Estate Corp and Sahara Housing Invest Corp.

The two firms have been found guilty of raising Rs 24,029 crore through issue of optionally fully convertible debentures in violation of Sebi regulations. Roy and the directors have been lodged in Tihar jail since March after the group failed to adhere to Supreme Court directions to refund the sum to investors with interest.

The court had allowed Roy special facilities inside the Tihar jail complex to negotiate the sale of three overseas properties. Despite staying there for about a month in August-September, the deals for sale could not go through. Rajeev Dhawan, Sahara counsel, said: “Sale was politically complicated. So, we devised a second route.”