Lenders lower reserve price of Kingfisher House to Rs 135 crore

Three months after they failed to sell Kingfisher House, erstwhile headquarters of the defunct Kingfisher Airlines, the lenders have once again put up the property for auction with a lower reserve price of Rs 135 crore so as to part-recover their loans.

The 17-bank consortium, led by State Bank of India (SBI), had in March tried to sell this flagship property here of the liquor baron Vijay Mallya in a bid to recover part of the dues.

The auction was a no-show as bidders stayed away citing high reserve price of Rs 150 crore.

"The reserve price (for Kingfisher House) is Rs 135 crore below which the property will not be sold," according to a public notice put up by SBI Caps, which is auctioning the property on behalf of the lenders.

The property which has a built-up area of over 17,000 sq ft in the plush Vile Parle area near domestic airport, will be auctioned on August 8.

Lenders had taken over Kingfisher House in February last year under the Sarfaesi Act.

The beleaguered tycoon owes over Rs 9,000 crore, which includes unpaid loans and accrued interest, to 17 banks.

In April, lenders had tried to auction the airlines' brands and trademarks but it also turned out to be a damp squib as bidders, in that case too, found the reserve price of Rs 366.70 crore very high.

Lenders had put on sale the airlines' trademarks which included it's famous tagline Fly the Good Times, the Kingfisher logo, Flying Models, Funliner, Fly Kingfisher and Flying Bird Device.

The Kingfisher brand was valued at over Rs 4,000 crore by Grant Thornton when the airline was at its peak.

The lenders may also review the reserve price of the brand Kingfisher.

In May, lenders after a long legal battle had taken possession of Airlines' prime assets-- Kingfisher Villa situated in Condolim, Goa.

Banks are currently in the process of revaluation of the property to sell it.

Last week, the Service Tax Department which had attached Mallay's personal jet in December 2013 for want of tax dues of over Rs 800 crore, had tried to auction a luxury plane owned by Mallya, which also failed.

The department had fixed Rs 152 crore as the reserve price but the sole bidder, a UAE-based aviation support company Alna Aero Distributional Finance Holdings, offered a paltry Rs 1.09 crore.