Piramal Group Wins the DHFL Bidding War with 94% Creditors Voting

Ajay Piramal won the controversial bankruptcy bid for Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL). The Piramal Group will acquire DHFL with 94 percent of the bankrupt home financer’s creditors voting in favour of a bid by the company. Piramal Group has committed Rs.38,250 crore to take over the assets of the mortgage lender. Piramal’s bid was followed by Oaktree at 45 percent, who was the closest contender.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) will now have to approve the winning bid.

Both Piramal and Oaktree made bids in the range of Rs.37,000-38,000 crore, while their cash components were almost identical at about Rs.17,000 crore each.

The creditors not only evaluated financial aspects but even the non-financial parts of the bids such as regulatory compliance, company track records and future action plans among others.

DHFL has collapsed due to heavy weight of liquidity crunch after the collapse of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) in late 2018 and couldn’t recover from the low point.

Today, the company owes nearly Rs.91,000 crore to its creditors, which includes State Bank of India (the biggest creditor to DHFL), Bank of India, Canara Bank, NHB, Union Bank of India, Syndicate Bank and Bank of Baroda