RCom receives bids worth Rs 25,000 crore from Reliance Jio, UVARCL

Anil Ambani's bankrupt telecom company Reliance Communications (RCom) and its subsidiaries have finally received bids worth Rs 25,000 crore for its assets from his brother Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJio) and UV Asset Reconstruction Company (UVARCL), a Hindu BusinessLine report said. The two companies reportedly emerged as the highest bidders in the Committee of Creditors (CoC) meet on Monday. This also marks the highest-ever recovery of dues in the telecom sector, which has seen a lot of disruption since Reliance Jio's entry in 2016.

UVARC has reportedly placed bids worth Rs 16,000 crore for spectrum, real estate assets and data centres of RCom and Reliance Telecom Ltd, while RJio placed bids worth Rs 4,700 crore for tower and fibre assets of Reliance Infratel Ltd (RITL).

Also read: SC orders DoT to refund Rs 104 crore bank guarantee to Anil Ambani's RCom

The report suggests bidders will pay around 30 per cent of the proceeds (around Rs 7,500 crore) in the next three months. With this amount, the RCom lenders will recover around 75 per cent of the total outstanding loan of Rs 33,000 crore from the beleaguered company. Lenders had submitted claims of around Rs 49,000 crore in August.

This is another big relief for the company after this month's SC breather, in which the apex court directed the Department of Telecom (DoT) to refund the bank guarantee worth Rs 104 crore to RCom, junking the DoT's plea to block the return of the amount.

RCom in the past had tried to sell assets to various companies, including Reliance Jio, to clear the debt but the deals did not follow through. Reliance Jio refused to buy the RCom assets, including spectrum, as it did not want to bear the past liabilities of the debt-ridden firm.

Later, the insolvency proceedings against RCom started on a plea filed by Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson after the company failed to clear its dues.

RCom Chairman Anil Ambani had tendered his resignation after the company posted a consolidated loss of Rs 30,142 crore for July-September 2019 due to provisioning for liabilities after the Supreme Court ruling on statutory dues. This was the second-highest loss posted by any Indian corporate till date. The CoC, however, rejected Ambani's resignation and asked to cooperate in insolvency proceedings.

Edited by Manoj Sharma

Also read: UK court dismisses $680 million Chinese banks' summary judgement plea against Anil Ambani, but calls his defence 'incomplete'