Debt-ridden Future Enterprises Limited (FEL) has received resolution plans from Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail Ventures, Jindal (India) Ltd, and Donear Industries-owned textiles maker GBTL Ltd under the corporate insolvency process, the company mentioned in an exchange filing to the stock exchange.
On February 27, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted Kishore Biyani’s Future Enterprises for corporate insolvency. The Mumbai bench of the NCLT ordered the "commencement of corporate insolvency resolution process" for the firm. As per the plan, the firm will be auctioned in order to recover unpaid dues.
The Resolution Professional in this case, Avil Menezes, disclosed the names of these three entities as a 'provisional list of prospective resolution applicants'.
The RP has admitted Rs 12,265 crore of verified claims from lenders and Rs 23 crore of claims from fixed deposit holders.
The Kishore Biyani-led Future group firm had significant borrowings in the form of bonds and thus, several trusteeship companies have filed claims. Centbank Financial Services has filed the highest claim of Rs 3,344 crore, followed by Axis Trustee Services at Rs 1,341 crore and Vistra ITCL (India) at Rs 210 crore.
In an exchange filing last month, FEL said the IRP has received claims of Rs 2.58 crore from employees, of which it has admitted Rs 2.24 crore. It also received statutory dues totalling Rs 14.75 crore from the state tax department and GST authorities.
"The Interim Resolution Professional has received claims from 803 Unsecured Financial creditors, 22 Secured Financial creditors (other than financial creditors belonging to any class of creditors) and 10 Unsecured Financial creditors (other than financial creditors belonging to any class of creditors) upto 5 June 2023," the company said.
Besides, the IRP has also received claims from "42 employees of Corporate Debtor (FEL), 4 Operational Creditors (Government dues) and 161 Operational Creditors (other than ‘Workmen and Employees and Government Dues)" within 90 days of CIRP, the report said.
On June 21, Future Enterprises reported that it has defaulted on payment of interest of Rs 6.07 crore for its non-convertible debentures. The due date for payment was June 20, 2022.
The Kishore Biyani-led Future group firm has defaulted on several payments in the last few months.
The latest default is on the interest of securities issued for a sum of Rs 120 crore.
FEL has defaulted on interest payment for the period between December 20, 2021, to June 19, 2022, it said.
The debentures are secured and have a coupon rate of 10.15 per cent per annum.
Earlier this month, FEL had defaulted on payment of interest of Rs 1.41 crore for its non-convertible debentures of Rs 29 crore.
Four of the Kishor Biyani-controlled Future Group companies are undergoing insolvency proceedings. Besides FEL, Future Retail Ltd, Future Lifestyles Fashion Ltd and Future Supply Chain Ltd are at different stages of insolvency proceedings.
The Future Group, which was already over-leveraged, suffered a setback due to the nationwide lockdown announced in 2020 to curb the spread of Covid-19. Most of its hypermarket stores located in malls were closed for several months affecting its sales.
Following this, the Group signed a deal with Reliance Industries-linked subsidiaries for the takeover of the entire business in a multi-stage transaction. The deal was hit by a string of litigation by ecommerce giant Amazon.com claiming violation of shareholder agreement it had with the company.
In March 2022, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) took over 900 Future Retail stores citing non-payment of rent. In April last year, most secured lenders rejected the deal with Reliance Industries. Thereafter, the Future Group firms were admitted for insolvency proceedings.
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