Reliance Retail, Jindal, and GBTL have submitted offers to acquire bankrupt Future Enterprises, according to disclosures made by the company to the stock exchange. The National Company Law Tribunal admitted Kishore Biyani’s Future Enterprises for corporate insolvency on February 27.
A report published by Economic Times says that the resolution professional, Avil Menezes, disclosed the names of these three entities as a provisional list of prospective resolution applicants. The company has received Rs 12,265 crore of verified claims from lenders and Rs 23 crore of claims from fixed deposit holders.
FEL had significant borrowings in the form of bonds, resulting in several trusteeship companies filing claims. Centbank Financial Services filed the highest claim of Rs 3,344 crore, followed by Axis Trustee Services at Rs 1,341 crore and Vistra ra ITCL (India) at Rs 210 crore.
Four Future Group companies, including FEL, Future Retail Ltd, Future Lifestyles Fashion Ltd, and Future Supply Chain Ltd, are undergoing insolvency proceedings. The Future Group faced financial challenges, worsened by the nationwide lockdown in 2020 due to Covid-19. Many of its hypermarket stores located in malls remained closed for several months.
In August 2020, the company signed an agreement to sell its entire business to subsidiaries linked to Reliance Industries in a multi-stage transaction. However, the deal was delayed due to litigation initiated by Amazon, which claimed a violation of a shareholder agreement with the company.
In March 2022, Reliance Industries took possession of the premises housing approximately 900 Future Retail stores due to non-payment of rent. In April of the previous year, most secured lenders rejected the deal with Reliance Industries. Subsequently, the four Future Group companies were admitted for corporate insolvency.