Yes Bank Takes Possession Of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group HQ In Mumbai
Yes Bank has also taken possession of two flats in South Mumbai due to non-payment of dues by Reliance Infrastructure Ltd.
Private sector lender Yes Bank Ltd. has taken over the headquarter of Anil Ambani's Reliance Group in Santacruz, Mumbai, for failure to repay dues of Rs 2,892 crore.
According to a notice published by Yes Bank in a newspaper on Wednesday, the private sector lender has also taken possession of two flats in South Mumbai due to the non-payment of dues by Reliance Infrastructure Ltd.
Nearly all the major companies in Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group were operating out of the Santacruz office called 'Reliance Centre'. In the last few years, the group's fortunes have gone south with the companies meeting various fates, including bankruptcies and stake sales.
Yes Bank said it had on May 6 sought to recover the dues from Reliance Infrastructure and took possession of the three properties on July 22 after a failure to repay even after 60 days of the notice. It cautioned the public not to deal with the properties, adding that any dealing with the properties will be subject to a charge of Yes Bank for an amount of Rs 2,892 crore.
In 2019, the Reliance Group was looking to lease out the headquarters—measuring 21,432 square metres, according to the Yes Bank notice—in an attempt to raise resources and pay off debt. The other two properties are spread over two different floors in South Mumbai's Nagin Mahal, measuring 1,717 sq. ft. and 4,936 sq. ft.
It can be noted that exposure to Reliance Group firms is blamed as among the key reasons for the high amount of bad debt piled up by Yes Bank. Due to the high amount of non-performing assets, the lender had to be bailed out by a State Bank of India-led consortium of lenders for Rs 10,000 crore.
Before the bailout, the government and the Reserve Bank of India superseded the Yes Bank board in March and installed a new board and appointed a new chief executive officer.
On June 23, Anil Ambani had claimed that Reliance Infrastructure, which has loans outstanding of Rs 6,000 crore, will be completely debt-free in 2020-21. In 2018, the company sold its Mumbai energy business to Adani Transmission for nearly Rs 18,800 crore, which helped reduce the debt to nearly Rs 7,500 crore.