Liberty House Says Caught ‘Wrong-Footed’ In Bhushan Power Bid
Liberty House Admits It Was Late, But Still Wants Its Bid For Bhushan Power & Steel To Be Accepted.
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U.K.-based Liberty House was caught “wrong-footed” in the insolvency proceedings of Bhushan Power & Steel, Sanjeev Gupta, executive chairman at the metals company said. Gupta said the company wants to remain in contention as its offer is superior to the ones that were accepted.
On Thursday, BloombergQuint reported that Liberty House would approach the National Company Law Tribunal to challenge the rejection of its bid for insolvent Bhushan Power & Steel.
“This process has been fairly complicated all throughout, so we’ve been following it, trying to keep up with it, and it has been frustrating, and we got wrongfooted”, Sanjeev Gupta said.
Gupta contended that though Liberty House had missed the final deadline of February 8 for filing its bid for Bhushan Power & Steel, it had submitted its bid for the Delhi-based steelmaker before the other bids were opened by the committee of creditors.
Liberty House submitted its bid on Tuesday, a day before the committee of creditors was set to meet to discuss the bids, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. On Wednesday, BloombergQuint reported that lenders had decided to reject the bid.
The point is that we were outside of the deadline, but we bid before the bids were opened. Our bid, we believe, is superior, so we’re asking the court to clarify whether the creditors and stakeholders have the right to get a better outcome, or technicalities of the process prevail.Sanjeev Gupta, Executive Chairman, Liberty House Group
At the moment, Tata Steel Ltd. is the frontrunner for Bhushan Power and Steel with its Rs 24,500 crore offer compared with JSW Steel Ltd.’s Rs 13,000 crore, BloombergQuint reported earlier. Negotiations are currently underway with Tata Steel and the final decision is likely to be taken by March 6.
Bhushan Power & Steel, one of the first 12 large stressed accounts identified by the Reserve Bank of India for resolution under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, owes more than Rs 47,000 crore to lenders, according to information on its website.
Apart from Bhushan Power & Steel, Liberty House has also bid for Amtek Auto’s assets under the insolvency process.