HPL bid may turn out to be infructuous, says IOC

Indian Oil Corporation's (IOC) bid for buying out West Bengal government's stake in ailing Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd may turn out to be infructuous, a senior company official said today.
"If things continue in this fashion, then IOC's bid may turn out to be infructuous," the official told PTI.
He said that IOC had long back written to the WBIDC, an arm of the West Bengal government, for a discussion on the state of affairs on HPL including a dialogue with TCG, the other major promoter of the company.
"The then industry minister Partha Chatterjee had replied on the issue. But the new minister Amit Mitra had not communicated us yet," the official said.

He said that there was need for a corrective action soon as the company was suffering losses each day, resulting the bid turning out to be null and void.
IOC emerged as the sole bidder for 675 million shares of WBIDC in HPL and quoted a price of Rs 25.10 per share way back in October 2013.

"The unusual delay is bothering us", he said.
TCG had moved the court over the disputed 155 million shares and the Supreme Court had also allowed it to take the matter to Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce for arbitration.
Meanwhile, lenders had extended a loan of Rs 100 crore to HPL.

The HPL board had also approved a rights issue amounting to Rs 1,300 crore to tide over the funds crunch.