With the disinvestment of DPSC, an erstwhile subsidiary of Andrew Yule being complete, the SREI-led consortium, the new owner of the company with a 57.17 per cent stake, on Friday reconstituted the board. Orbis Power Ventures, the Special Purpose Vehicle floated by Srei to acquire DPSC, will now make an open offer for 20 per cent additional stake in DPSC on Saturday itself, Hemant Kanoria, Chairman-cum-Managing Director, Srei told Financial Chronicle.
Kanoria said that they had paid the entire amount of Rs 171.85 crore to Andrew Yule, LIC and United India Insurance, who had offloaded their stakes in the company. LIC and United India Insurance hold 30.61 per cent and 11.36 per cent in DPSC, respectively, while Andrew Yule enjoys a 15.2 per cent stake.
This coincided with the Supreme Court on Friday quashing and refusing to admit two pending cases: one by Descon, the largest shareholder in DPSC, and the other by the Trinamul Congress backed DPSC union in this regard.
Meanwhile Jyoti Poddar, Managing Director of Bhaskar Silicon Private Limited, told Financial Chronicle that the new members on the reconstituted board of the company were D P Patra, Hemant Kanoria, Jyoti Poddar and M G Khaitan. Radhakrishnan remained as the managing director of the company.
Kallol Datta, Chairman of Andrew Yule told Financial Chronicle that he was happy and relieved that he could carry out the mandate given to him. He said that they would be paying back Rs 73 crore to the Centre next week.
It may be recalled that on November 20, the Srei-led consortium had emerged as the highest bidder for the 57.17 per cent stake in DPSC, which is largely a distribution company and covers an area of 618 sq km in the Asansol-Durgapur region. It has two power generating stations — Chinakuri (30 mw) and Dishergarh (15 mw) — and buys nearly 80 mw power from DVC to supply power in its licensed area. Srei had quoted Rs 710 per share in an auction conducted by a court appointed officer, outbidding Descon, which had offered Rs 705. Then the whole issue had been hanging fire in a legal quagmire for years.
In the wake of Srei moving the Calcutta High Court for a speedy conclusion of the deal, the court had earlier directed Andrew Yule and the two insurers to transfer their combined holding to the highest bidder within a stipulated time. The deal could finally be completed within that time.
Source: My Digital FC