BHUBANESWAR: Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Steel has emerged as the front-runner to acquire the stressed Bhushan Power and Steel, with a revised offer of Rs 19,700 crore in the final round of bidding, said multiple people aware of the development. JSW Steel has offered to shell out Rs 19,350 crore to lenders of Bhushan Power, which defaulted on a Rs 47,000 crore loan, and another Rs 350 crore to the operational creditors of the company under insolvency proceedings.
The lenders, who believe that the case is not resolved as yet, will review and evaluate the criteria of the bids to identify the highest bidder by late Tuesday and submit the leading bids to National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), which will hear the case on August 17.The other two bidders in the fray — Tata Steel and Liberty House — surprisingly kept their offers unchanged. Liberty House’s offer stood at Rs 18,900-crore bid and Tata Steel’s bid stood at Rs 17,200-crore, both of which are lower than JSW’s bid.
Tata Steel, which had bid Rs 17,500 crore, was earlier declared as the highest bidder after the CoC rejected Liberty House’s bid of Rs 18,000 crore, which it said was submitted after the deadline. But just when the Tatas were about to touch the finishing line, JSW re-entered the scene increasing its bid to Rs 19,000 crore from Rs 11,000 crore. Despite Tata’s objection, the NCLAT ordered the CoC to consider fresh bids to be placed by all the three bidders by August 13.
However, analysts remain concerned about the impact of the debt on the Tata company’s books. After Bhushan Steel’s takeover, the steelmaker’s debt had already spiked by 50 per cent to over Rs 1 lakh crore. Even though Tata Steel Chief Financial Officer Koushik Chatterjee has assured that “debt in the context of growing balance sheet will be closely monitored”, investors fear that further inorganic growth may pose a risk for the company.