NEW DELHI: Lenders of troubled Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL) will have to wait longer as the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has allowed 90 days extension for the resolution process of the company till January 5, 2021.
The Centre had imposed the lockdown from March 25 till May 31, 2020. However, in Maharashtra, the lockdown was extended until July 31, 2020, and therefore a period of 129 days should be excluded from the CIRP process, the administrator of DHFL had argued.
The Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has allowed the extension for the resolution process of the company, and has also allowed the exclusion of the time of lockdown from the CIRP process.
DHFL is the first financial services company which has been sent to the NCLT under the insolvency and bankruptcy code (IBC). Last year in November, the RBI had superseded its board and placed it under a three-member advisory committee comprising Rajiv Lall, executive chairman of IDFC First Bank; NS Kannan, MD of ICICI Prudential Life, and NS Venkatesh, CEO of the Association of Mutual Funds in India.
The company owed over Rs 83,800 crore to the banks, the National Housing Board, mutual funds and bondholders. Out of this, about Rs 74,000 crore was secured, while over Rs 9,800 crore was unsecured.
Recently, it attracted bids from many bidders including Adani Properties, Piramal Enterprises and Oaktree Capital which offered Rs 28,000 crore.