The race to acquire bankrupt Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL) has turned into a bitter battle between two of the country’s largest business houses- Adani Group and Piramal Enterprises- and may force lenders to call for revised bids from all four suitors.

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CNBC-TV18 has learned that Adani Group has now submitted two offers to acquire DHFL, submitting an additional bid for the entire DHFL portfolio this morning, over a week after the other suitors had submitted their final offers for the troubled mortgage financier.

Adani Group is understood to have made an offer of Rs 31,250 crore to acquire the entire DHFL portfolio, which is higher than Oaktree Capital’s existing offer of Rs 31,000 crores for the book, as per people in the know. The offer made today is in addition to Adani Group’s existing offer of Rs 2,750 crores for DHFL’s wholesale and slum rehabilitation (SRA) books.

This has led to Piramal group crying foul over what it has termed an “unsolicited and suspicious” offer from rival Adani Group, CNBC-TV18 had reported. Oaktree Capital, which was so far the highest bidder for the company, is also understood to have raised concerns over Adani’s offer to the lenders of the company.

"The manner and timing of submission of such a resolution plan is intended to disrupt and vitiate the process being followed under the current RFRP and undermine the considerable time and effort invested by us and other participants in submitting our resolution plans faithfully in accordance with the provisions of the RFRP and applicable law," Piramal Group had said to the administrator of DHFL in a letter on November 13, CNBC-TV18 had reported

“Banks may well consider Adani’s new bid because it offers the highest recovery. Nobody wants the investigative agencies to later come back and question banks why the highest offer was rejected,” said a bank executive on the condition of anonymity. “Because of Adani’s new offer, we have to give other bidders also a chance to revise their offers,” another bank executive added.

The committee of creditors for DHFL is holding a meeting this evening to open all the bids and consider inviting revised offers from all suitors with the surprising new development over the weekend, said one of the people quoted earlier.

CNBC-TV18 had earlier reported that Oaktree Capital, Piramal Group, Adani Properties & SC Lowy had submitted revised offers on November 9. Oaktree Capital had offered Rs 31,000 crore for the entire book, Piramal Rs 26,500 cr for the retail book, and SC Lowy Rs 2300 cr for wholesale assets, CNBC-TV18 had reported.

Both Adani Group and Piramal Enterprises are yet to respond to CNBC-TV18’s queries on this story.

(Edited by : Anshul)

First Published:Nov 17, 2020 11:55 AM IST