Raising the hope for the revival of Jet Airways, the grounded airline has received a resolution plan from two of the four shortlisted bidders. These bidders were shortlisted in the fourth round of inviting bids. The first bidder is a consortium of UK-based financial advisory company Kalrock Capital and a UAE-based entrepreneur Murari Lal Jalan. The second bid has come from a consortium of Haryana-based Flight Simulation Technique Centre, Mumbai-based Big Charter and Abu Dhabi-based Imperial Capital Investments LLC.
The consortium with Flight Simulation and Big Charter has reportedly proposed to restart Jet Airways with five single-aisle aircraft and serve domestic and medium-haul markets. As per a Business Standard report, Capt. Sanjay Mandavia, chief executive officer of Flight Simulation Technique Centre said that they will be making an equity investment and have also received support from Xponentia Capital Partners.
On the other hand, Kalrock Capital and Murari Lal Jalan have said in their bid that they plan to restart Jet with 27 wide-bodied aircraft.
The other bidders were Canada-based entrepreneur Sivakumar Rasiah, and Kolkata’s Alpha Airways who haven’t seemed to submit a resolution plan.
Jet’s resolution professional Ashish Chhawchharia told TNM that the resolution plans submitted by both bidders will be reviewed to see how viable they are and ensure they comply with Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), this will be followed by negotiations with lenders and should that work out, there will be an approval. This process is likely to take around a month.
This is the fourth attempt at finding Jet Airways a suitor. Earlier, Synergy Group and New Delhi-based Prudent ARC showed interest but failed to submit a resolution plan for Jet Airways.
Jet Airways suspended operations over a year ago due to a severe cash crunch on April 18, 2019. It owes lenders – led by State Bank of India -- over Rs 8,000 crore.
The insolvency proceedings for the airline began on June 20, 2019, has since been extended several times as there hasn’t been a serious bidder.
Strategic investors need to have a minimum net worth or available funds of Rs 500 crore, while financial investors are required to have assets under management of worth at least Rs 500 crore.