NEW DELHI: After Reliance Communications (RComm) chairman Anil Ambani along with four other directors had stepped down from the company, lenders of the bankrupt firm have dismissed the move asking the directors to “cooperate in the corporate insolvency resolution process”.
In a regulatory filing on Sunday, RComm said that the committee of creditors (CoC) met on November 20 and expressed a unanimous view that the resignations cannot be accepted. “...It is being duly communicated to the directors of RComm that their resignations have not been accepted and they are advised to continue to perform their duties and responsibilities as the directors and provide all cooperation to resolution professional in the insolvency resolution process,” it noted.
Other directors who have tendered their resignations are Chhaya Virani, Ryna Karani, Manjari Kacker and Suresh Rangachar. The move comes even as lenders to the telecom company are looking to sell RComm assets while the firm is now being managed by a resolution professional.
RComm has been officially declared bankrupt due to its inability to repay the debt. Ambani and his group companies — holding 10.48 per cent in RComm at September end — are, however, still part of the promoter group companies. Over 46 per cent of the shares is pledged with lenders, according to BSE data. The beleaguered firm owes over Rs 50,000 crore to lenders, with little recovery in the pipeline.
RComm has put all its assets for sale, including spectrum holding of 122 MHz that the company before insolvency proceedings estimated to be around Rs 14,000 crore, towers business for Rs 7,000 crore, optical fibre network Rs 3,000 crore and data centres worth Rs 4,000 crore.
The CoC has decided to open the bids for RComm assets on November 25 and Reliance Jio is likely to buy the assets of the stressed company after Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel has withdrawn its bids given that its balance sheet is already stretched with a liability of Rs 23,450 crore after assessing the adjusted gross income (AGR) dues.
If Mukesh Ambani picks up the assets under the IBC proceeding, the valuation of the deal also is likely to be much lesser than Rs 25,000 crore he had promised two years ago, said an independent investment advisor. In the quarter ended September, the company posted a huge loss of Rs 30,142 crore, over a paltry turnover of less than Rs 400 crore, after provisioning Rs 28,314 crore for licence fee and spectrum usage dues following a recent Supreme Court verdict on calculation of AGR.