The Allahabad Bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has approved Adani Enterprises’ Rs 15,000 crore resolution plan for Jaiprakash Associates Ltd (JAL), paving the way for billionaire Gautam Adani’s conglomerate to assume control of the debt-laden company.
In November last year, a Committee of Creditors (CoC) approved the resolution plan of AEL to acquire JAL. In a regulatory filing, Adani Enterprises said the resolution plan may be implemented either directly by them, its group entities, or through special purpose vehicles, in line with the approved structure.
The approved resolution plan mandates the immediate delisting of JAL’s securities from stock exchanges with zero consideration for existing shareholders. According to exchange disclosure, the liquidation value is insufficient to satisfy even secured creditors' claims in full, resulting in nil consideration for shareholders during the delisting process.
The Adani Group company had outbid Vedanta and Dalmia Bharat in the race for the infrastructure group JAL. Vedanta had challenged the process, alleging a lack of transparency and fairness.
Adani got the maximum 93% votes from creditors, followed by Dalmia and Vedanta. The National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL) had the biggest say in the process as it controls 85.5% of the Committee of Creditors' (CoC) voting share. A small group of lenders, including State Bank of India and ICICI Bank, which together account for less than 3% of CoC's votes, abstained from voting.
Adani has proposed a total plan value (TPV) of Rs 14,535 crore, including Rs 6,005 crore upfront and another Rs 7,600 crore payable after two years.
JAL, which has high-quality assets and business interests spanning real estate, cement manufacturing, hospitality, power and engineering & construction, was admitted to the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) in June 2024 after it defaulted on payments of loans aggregating Rs 57,185 crore.