The bankruptcy court in Delhi has approved the acquisition of Alchemist Infra Realty Ltd by the Singapore-based Vantage Point Asset Management Pte Ltd. The company’s resolution professional had received a claim of Rs 1,293 crore and the successful bidder is paying about Rs 470 crore to acquire the company through the insolvency resolution process.
Before the approval of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), the lenders of the Delhi-based real estate firm approved the revival plan of Vantage Point Asset Management with 100% voting in its favour.
“The plan shall be binding on the corporate debtor (Alchemist Infra Realty), its employees, members, creditors (including the central and state government), guarantors and other stakeholders involved in the resolution plan,” said the division bench of judicial member Ashok Kumar Bharadwaj and technical member Subrata Kumar Dash.
The tribunal directed Vantage Point Asset Management to furnish the updated bank guarantee, which should remain valid till the implementation of the resolution plan.
The resolution professional had received claims of about Rs 1,293 crore and admitted claims of about Rs 947 crore.
Originally, the company’s financial creditor, Technology Parks Ltd, had approached the tribunal after Alchemist Infra Realty defaulted on its dues of about Rs 401 crore. In March 2022, the company was admitted under the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) and the tribunal appointed Gaurav Mishra as the resolution professional of the company.
The bankrupt real estate firm’s fair market value was estimated at Rs 380 crore, while the liquidation value was pegged at Rs 302 crore. The successful bidder is, therefore, paying more than both fair value and liquidation value.
“In northern India, if a project gets stuck, then taking over by another company remains the only option to revive such projects,” an industry expert said on condition of anonymity. “There have been multiple cases of tribunal approving the acquisition, but legacy issues hold the project back. Due to the rise in property and land prices recently, most of the projects are now viable and are seeing a lot of interest from potential investors or developers.”
A total of 7,567 companies across sectors were brought into administration until March-end, since the inception of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code in 2016, according to the latest data from the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India. Of these, 1,589 or 21% were from the real estate sector.
About 15% of the total companies admitted under the CIRP that witnessed revival or acquisition from a new bidder were from the real estate sector, according to the data.
