Lenders To Auction Two Kingfisher Airlines Properties Today
Kingfisher Villa’s reserve price set at Rs 73 crore.
Kingfisher Airlines' two prime assets, Kingfisher House in the city and Kingfisher Villa in Goa, will be auctioned on Monday, by banks to recover their loans to the long-defunct airline started by defaulter businessman Vijay Mallya.
While Kingfisher House will be put under the hammer for the fourth time after three failed attempts, Kingfisher Villa is being put on sale for the third time.
The reserve prices for both the properties owned by Mallya have been lowered after the earlier attempts of the 17-lender consortium failed to attract bidders.
The SBI-led consortium has reduced the reserve price of the erstwhile headquarters of the grounded airline, Kingfisher House, by 10 percent to Rs 103.5 crore as compared to that of Rs 115 crore for the previous auction held last December.
In the first auction of Kingfisher House last March, the reserve price was set at Rs 150 crore but was lowered to Rs 135 crore in the second auction held in August as none of the bidders came forward to buy the property.
The prime property has a built-up area of over 17,000 square feet and is located in the Vile Parle area near the domestic airport.
Similarly, the reserve price of Kingfisher Villa, situated at Condolim in north Goa is set at Rs 73 crore, which is around 10 percent lower than the second auction held last December.
In the December auction, the price of the sea-facing property was set at Rs 81 crore. It was put under the hammer for the first time last October with a reserve price of Rs 85.29 crore.
SBICAPS Trustee is auctioning the properties on behalf of the lenders.
Mallya has been declared a wilful defaulter and is wanted by Indian authorities for default in payment of loans related to Kingfisher Airlines that was grounded in 2012.
He owes over Rs 9,000 crore to lenders like State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, IDBI Bank, Bank of Baroda, Allahabad Bank, Federal Bank and Axis Bank Ltd., among others. He left the country on March 3 last year and is currently said to be in the U.K.
On Friday, Mallya, in a series of tweets, blamed faulty engines as one of the reasons for the collapse of Kingfisher Airlines.
He said IAE, a group firm of Pratt & Whitney, against which Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has ordered a detailed inspection, has been sued for supplying defective engines to his erstwhile airlines.
Aviation regulator DGCA recently ordered a detailed inspection of 21 Airbus 320neo planes of IndiGo and GoAir that are equipped with Pratt & Whitney engines, which are facing frequent glitches.