Sicom offloads Unitech shares worth Rs 55 cr

Sicom, the Maharashtra government-owned non-banking finance company (NBFC), today sold Rs 55 crore worth shares of Unitech, as the promoters of the company failed to repay loans raised against pledged shares.

Sicom sold 8.12 million shares of the Chandra-family promoted property company at Rs 27.24 each on the National Stock Exchange and 12.2 million shares at Rs 26.72 each on the Bombay Stock Exchange, according to data released by the exchanges. The sold shares are about 1.25 per cent of the company's shares outstanding.

A company spokesperson did not respond to calls and messages. "This is a case of promoter funding. This is a practice (offloading shares) to top up when the market value of shares go down," a SICOM official said.

Just three days ago, another state-run financial entity IFCI sold Rs 51.7 crore worth shares of Unitech as the promoters failed to repay the loans taken against pledged shares.

IFCI sold 17.5 million shares of the company at Rs 29.52 each on the NSE, which were about 1.1 per cent of the company’s share outstanding. Unitech promoters have been pledging shares since March last year to raise funds, analysts tracking the company said.

The promoters had borrowed Rs 200 crore from Indiabulls Financial Services, which was repaid in November. Analysts believe about 8 per cent of the promoter shares are pledged with lenders. One of the non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), DBS Chola Finance, had on December 24 sold 12.8 million, or 0.8 per cent, of Unitech’s outstanding shares. Recently, credit rating firm Fitch Ratings downgraded both the long-term and short-term debt programme of Unitech on concerns over the company’s ability to service debt.

Fitch downgraded Unitech’s Rs 4,400-crore long-term debt to ‘B’ from ‘BBB’ earlier, and Rs 1,200-crore short-term debt and bank loans to ‘F4’ from ‘F3’. Unitech needs to pay Rs 1,100 crore in January and a total of Rs 2,500 crore by March, mostly to mutual funds, banks and financial institutions.

‘’The downgrade reflects the company’s continued delay in raising required funds as projected earlier and increasing uncertainty regarding its ability to service interest cost and fulfil its immediate debt/ land payment obligations,’’ Fitch had said in its statement.