Anil Ambani, the Chairman of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) has declared that Reliance Capital’s role will be shrunk to that of a shareholder in the group’s two entities, Reliance Commercial Finance and Reliance Home Finance and will stop directly engaging in any lending activity. This announcement came at the company’s annual general meeting as part of the Chairman’s speech.
Ambani is trying to pull his venture out of a serious debt trap and claims the group has managed to clear over Rs 35,000 crore of debts over the past 15 months; another Rs 15,000 crore is attempted to be paid before March 2020. The Chairman claims the remaining debts are all current (meaning there is no default).
According to the company, an amount of Rs 60,000 crore is struck at different stages of settlement as receivables through arbitration and via regulatory processes. They attribute the current status of the company to the overall crisis that has gripped the non-banking finance companies and the general economic downturn the country is passing through. The Chairman, in his speech, has not spared the auditors and the rating agencies too for the problems at Reliance Capital. The debt repayment plans for the rest of the financial year has factored in the condition that there will be no funding from any bank, NBFC or other financial institutions.
Just ahead of the AGM, the company says it has released payments worth Rs 72.65 crore that include redemption of non-convertible debentures, repayment of term loans as well as returning some inter-corporate deposits. Among the deals concluded recently by Reliance Capital, liquidating its 21.54% stake in Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management in favour of the Japanese partner Nippon Life Insurance of Japan (Nippon) for a consideration of Rs 3,030 crore, is also included.