Lenders to get 51 per cent RCom stake

Mumbai: With some of its deleveraging plans, which included a merger with Aircel, collapsing, cornered RCom on Monday presented a fresh plan to recast its Rs 45,000 crore debt to lenders that includes converting Rs 7,000 crore of debt into equity by banks and handing over majority stake to them. If the latest rescue attempt goes through, lenders led by SBI will hold at least 51 per cent in the telco and promoters’ stake will be halved to around 26 per cent.

The debt revamp plan involves the Anil Ambani-run RCom raising money through asset sale to repay Rs 17,000 crore of debt, executive director Punit Garg said, adding though total value of the assets is over Rs 30,000 crore they are conservatively looking at raising only Rs 17,000 crore. Of this, it will raise around Rs 10,000 crore through sale and commercial development of real estate assets, including its 100-acre headquarters, DAKC (Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge Centre) in the nearby Navi Mumbai, he said.

The assets which would be put on block include its spectrum holding of 122 MHz valued at Rs 14,000 crore, towers business from where it can get Rs 7,000 crore, optical fibre network valued at Rs 3,000 crore and data centres which can fetch Rs 4,000 crore, Mr Garg added. The telco claimed that under the new plan there will be zero write-off for the lenders, who used to taking haircuts in stressed assets, and that this will make RCom a sustainable and profitable if the new restructure plans goes through.

Even though RCom has time till December 2018 under the strategic debt restructuring (SDR) agreement with the lenders, it is confident of getting through with the asset monetisation efforts by March 2018. The lenders have appointed SBI Caps to carry out the new monetisation plan.Even under the ongoing SDR, banks would have any way taken majority ownership, but the collapse of a slew of deals including a planned merger with Aircel earlier this month, had raised doubts over its sustainability.

The merger with Aircel was the last straw of hope for the company, but did not go through due to a slew of litigations filed by many of its unpaid vendors like Ericsson among others and even individual shareholders. At Monday’s closing price, RCom is valued at over Rs 3,900 crore only. But when asked about the conversion of Rs 7,000 crore debt to equity, Mr Garg said they assume an appreciation in the enterprise value once the new restructuring started.

Anil Ambani loses Majority Stake 
The lenders have appointed SBI Caps to carry out the new monetisation plan.

• If the latest rescue attempt goes through, lenders led by SBI will hold at least 51% in the telco and promoters’ stake will be halved to around 26%.
•  The telco claimed that under the new plan there will be zero write-off.
• Garg replied in the affirmative when asked whether Reliance Jio, with which RCom has ongoing pacts for sharing towers, fibre and spectrum, might be interested in these assets.