NEW DELHI: Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani has resigned as the director of Reliance Communications (RCom), along with four other directors, as a prelude to sell off of the beleaguered firm, which has reported a consolidated loss of Rs 30,142 crore in Q2 FY20, the second-highest in corporate India after Vodafone Idea.
Other directors of the company who have tendered their resignations are Chhaya Virani, Ryna Karani, Manjari Kacker and Suresh Rangachar, the company said. “Manikantan V., has also tendered his resignation as the director and CFO of the company earlier. The aforementioned resignations shall be put up to the Committee of Creditors of the company for their consideration,” it said.
Reliance Communications, which is undergoing insolvency process following an application filed by Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson, has been struggling to sell assets for the recovery of dues. During July-September 2019, the company set aside Rs 28,314 crore on account of provisioning following the Supreme Court order on October 24 on calculation of annual adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of telecom companies. The SC last month upheld the government’s position on including revenue from non-telecommunication businesses in calculating the annual AGR, a share of which has to be paid as licence and spectrum fee to the exchequer.
The ruling left 15 telcos facing over Rs 1.3 lakh crore in additional statutory dues. RCom’s total liability includes Rs 23,327 crore licence fee and Rs 4,987 crore spectrum usage charges.
Tota secured debt of the company is estimated to be around Rs 33,000 crore. Lenders, meanwhile, have submitted claim of around Rs 49,000 crore in August. The company has put its all assets for sale which include 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 Committee of Creditors looking after asset sale of RCom will open the bids received for the assets on November 24.