Bankruptcy court approves resolution plan for Era Infra Engineering

After a delay of nearly seven years, lenders of Era Infra Engineering, are likely to recover part of their dues, as the bankruptcy court has approved the company’s acquisition by lesser-known SA Infrastructure Consultants Pvt Ltd.

The company was part of the first list of 12 companies, issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the mandatory corporate resolution process (CIRP).

The successful bidder has proposed to pay around Rs 525 crore, where the admitted liabilities of the company is about Rs 22, 200 crore. Before the tribunal’s nod, the company’s lender had approved the plan with 87.08% voting in favour.

“We hereby approve the resolution plan, which shall be binding on the corporate debtor and its employees, shareholders of the corporate debtor, creditors including the Central Government, any State Government or any local authority to whom statutory dues are owed, Successful Resolution Applicant and other stakeholders involved,” said the division bench of judicial member Mahendra Khandelwal and a technical member Dr. Sanjeev Ranjan in its order of June 11.

Apart from the successful bidder SA Infrastructure Consultants, other applicants three applicants Prudent ARC and RKG Fund I, Khyati Realtors & LIF Pvt Ltd and a consortium of Navneet Garg and Rishi Aggarwal had also submitted their resolution plans.

The approved resolution plan provides for an initial cash infusion of Rs 65 crore along with another infusion of Rs 40.97 crore as non-fund-based support to the company.

“Detailed objections were raised by one of the creditors holding less than 1.5% voting rights and NCLT has dealt with each of the objections in the detailed order by the Resolution Plan was approved,” said Ashish K. Singh, managing partner, Capstone Legal. “In my opinion, raising such objections while almost all public banks are acceptable to the Resolution Plan creates an unnecessary delay in the approval of the Resolution Plan and recovery of dues,” adds Singh.

In May 2018, the New Delhi bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted an application filed by the Union Bank of India and also appointed Rajiv Chakraborty as the resolution professional of the company.

Out of its total liabilities, the company owes over Rs 17,196 crore to its secured financial creditors and about Rs 610 crore towards its operational creditors. The government dues stand at Rs 4,200 crore.