Banks To Release 650 Cr To ABG Shipyard Soon Under Corporate Debt Restructuring Deal


MUMBAI: Largest private sector shipbuilder ABG ShipyardBSE 12.68 percent, which is under a CDR, will receive 650 crore infusion from lenders by this month-end as part of the 10,000-crore debt recast deal worked out in March, a top company official has said.

The Surat-headquartered company is confident of successfully getting out of the corporate debt restructuring cell in two years, its executive director and chief financial officer Dhananjay Datar told reporters here late last evening.

The company has convinced the 22-bank consortium led by State Bank, which had two specific reservations, and has got sanction for release of the money, he said.

On the banks' demand for pledge of shares by promoters, Datar said ABG has promised that promoters will be pledging their 68 per cent holding in the company by March 2015.

It can be noted that in late March, a group of 22 banks led by State Bank had cleared the recast of 10,000 crore in loans advanced to the troubled shipbuilder under the corporate debt restructuring (CDR) process, making it the second biggest loan recast in recent times, next only to the 13,500-crore debt recast done for engineering and construction major Gammon IndiaBSE -2.59 percentin July 2013.

Under CDR, around 2,500 crore worth of long-term loans and Rs 7,000 crore of working capital loans were restructured with a two-year moratorium for interest payment.

The issue over a 236-crore investment in an asset management company in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands - about which the banks had sought clarity - has also been settled, he said.

Source: PTI