National Company Law Tribunal Asks State Bank Of India Not To Sell Off Videocon's Overseas Oil And Gas Assets

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has asked the State Bank of India (SBI) not go ahead with its plans to sell off overseas oil and gas assets (subsidiaries) of Videocon Industries in order to recover its dues.

Incidentally, the Videocon group along with its with 15 operating companies, owes more than Rs 90,000 crore to lenders and is among the 40 largest defaulters identified by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its first list for insolvency in late 2016.

Earlier, Videocon Industries had requested NCLT to include Videocon Energy Brazil and Videocon Indonesia Nunukan Inc in the ongoing corporate insolvency resolution process, after its lenders invited bids for these assets to recover part of their debt.

The latest NCLT order came after the SBI advertised to sell the upstream oil and gas assets of Videocon in Brazil and Indonesia by inviting expression of interests (EoIs).

The NCLT asked for status quo and stated that if the SBI is allowed to execute the sale of its overseas subsidiaries as advertised, the Videocon Group may suffer irreparable losses if the NCLT decided in future that the subsidiaries are owned by the group.

It may be recalled that the NCLT had stated in a September 7 order that these assets (subsidiaries) are special purpose vehicles (SPVs) specifically incorporated by Venugopal Dhoot to hold foreign oil and gas assets for as well as on behalf of the Videocon group.

Therefore, the NCLT stated that the creditors of these SPVs have lodged their claims with the resolution professional and added that the matter is still sub judice.