Bidders for taking over the troubled housing finance company, Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL), will have to wait longer to know the fate of their bids. The last date for the submission of bids for the company has since been extended till May 7, according to the Financial Express. The last date was April 16. The 21-day extension matches the 21-day lockdown announced by the government with to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Incidentally, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) had already made an announcement that for there will be across the board amnesty for all cases involved and the 21 days of the lockdown will stand excluded from any deadline. There are number of days mandated under the IBC code where the insolvency resolution process is going on. The present extension of the last date for filing the bids for DHFL by 21 days is also part of this decision only.
The lenders to DHFL are prepared to sell the entire operations of the company to one buyer or to split the assets and sell in parts. The bids were also invited on those lines. 24 bids were received by the Committee of Creditors (CoC). After preliminary scrutiny, 22 of these 24 bids have been shortlisted. It is understood that 14 of these 22 are for taking over DHFL in its entirety. Some of the bidders for complete takeover included KKR India Financial Services, Welspun Group, Adani Group, Oaktree Capital, ARCIL Asset Reconstruction Company and Bain Capital. All of them have sent in their expressions of interest in acquiring the complete stake in DHFL. The case is with the National Company Law Tribunal, Mumbai branch.
The CoC will now go into the details of the expressions of interest and based in its own parameters select a few and allow them access to the books of DHFL for conducting a due diligence. After that, these bidders will be given a shorter duration to submit their financial bids. It is based on the bids that the final negotiations will be held and a decision arrived at on who the successful bidder is.
Everything now goes to the first week of May.