Creditors of Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Naval have pushed the deadline to submit bids for the company by a month.

Share Market Live

NSE

The last date for submission of expressions of interest (EoIs) has now been pushed to July 27, according to a notice on the company's website.

The decision was taken after the company received a poor response from suitors in the first round, two banking executives involved told CNBC-TV18.

The document states that prospective resolution applicants will be invited to submit final bids by September 5, 2020 and the estimated date for submitting the resolution plan to NCLT for approval is now October 5, 2020.

In the first round ending June 27, lenders received five EoIs but they were not satisfied with the response, one of the banking officials quoted earlier said.

The suitors included asset reconstruction company ARCIL, a Netherland-based company’s terminal operating unit called APM Terminals, Russia’s state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation, a domestic venture capital fund named Next Orbit Ventures, and a US-based fund Interups.

The SBI-led consortium, therefore, decided to allow for more time and invite EOIs again in the hope of getting interest from more players, said a person in the know.

Reliance Naval is facing claims of over Rs 43,587 crore under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) from financial creditors, including State Bank of India (Rs 1,965 crore claim), Union Bank of India (Rs 1,556 crore), IDBI Bank (Rs 1,375 crore) and so on.

The company was admitted for insolvency proceedings by the Ahmedabad bench of NCLT on January 15 this year.

Reliance Naval, previously Pipavav Defence, has been under severe financial strain since 2013, even before it was acquired by the Anil Ambani group.

The company underwent a corporate debt restructuring in 2015, but continued to face stress due to a variety of reasons including lack of large orders from the defence ministry.

Two other shipbuilding firms - ABG Shipyard and Bharti Shipyard - also faced similar financial stress and were both pushed under liquidation under the bankruptcy law.