NBCC's Jaypee dreams may soon become reality

With the NBCC placing a bid of higher value than the liquidiation amount for Jaypee Infratech (JIL) and the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) directing the CoC to consider the bid, the state-run construction major has reasons to be hopeful about the buyout.

According to sources, the bid of NBCC (India) Ltd -- formerly known as National Buildings Construction Corporation Ltd -- is worth around Rs 24,000 crore, compared to the liquidation value set by the Committee of Creditors (CoC) at Rs 17,000 crore.

The NBCC has offered to pay Rs 500 crore upfront to lenders, against the previous offer of Rs 1,000 crore, and the sources said that it has proposed to invest a total of Rs 14,000 crore.

In its revised resolution plan, the public sector enterprise has offered to give lenders Rs 5,000 crore worth land parcels as against the earlier offer of land worth Rs 3,000 crore. However, it has offered 950 acre of land, against the previous offer of 1,426 acre.

The NBCC has also offered to the lenders the Yamuna Expressway that connects Noida to Agra and it estimates the expressway's worth at around Rs 4,200 crore, people in the know said.

As the Allahabad bench of the NCLT on Monday ordered continuation of the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) till its next hearing on May 21 and also ordered the CoC to consider the NBCC bid, the company's chances of acquiring the JIL are now stronger than ever before.

The CoC would meet on May 9 to discuss the NBCC resolution. It will be the only bid to be considered by the CoC now after the lenders rejected Suraksha's bid in its latest e-voting procedure.

Both homebuyers and lenders are in favour of the NBCC, according to the people familiar with the developments.

Although Manoj Gaur, the Jaypee Group Chairman, has sought homebuyers' support to withdraw the resolution process under Section 12A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, but a section of the homebuyers has outrightly rejected the offer.

Several homebuyers have also complained of the quality of construction done by Jaypee. Varina Nathani, a homebuyer in Noida-based Jaypee Aman project, told IANS that the quality of construction is bad and the developer has also increased the "super area without the consent or knowledge of buyers".

Sanjeev Sahani, another homebuyer and member of a homebuyer association, said that if NBCC's bid is put to vote, most of the lenders and home buyers are likely to vote for it.

(Rituraj Baruah can be reached at rituraj.b@ians.in)

--IANS

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