Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio inches closer to buying Anil Ambani’s RCom assets as SBI OKs this plan

RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani inched closer to buying towers and fibre assets of his younger brother Anil Ambani’s now defunct telecom company Reliance Communications with lead banker SBI approving RCom’s insolvency resolution plan, the Financial Express reported citing unidentified sources. The lenders have received bids from Reliance Jio and UV Asset Reconstruction Company (UVARC) for different assets of Reliance Communications. Reliance Jio is interested in RCom’s tower and fibre assets housed under subsidiary Reliance Infratel. UVARC had bid for spectrum, real estate, and enterprise and data centre businesses of the RCom.

RCom’s committee of creditors (CoC) has started voting on a resolution plan and the same is expected to conclude on Wednesday. The company has been under an insolvency process since 18 June 2019. Earlier, the committee of creditors had declared Reliance Jio and UVARC as H1 bidders, i.e, the highest bidders for different assets of the company. While UVARC placed a bid of around Rs 14,700 crore, Reliance Jio offered Rs 4,700 crore for the tower and fibre assets of Reliance Infratel, which has put all of its assets on sale. The resolution process of the same has to be completed by 10 March 2020, according to the latest directive by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). Anish Narayan has been appointed as the resolution professional for RCom’s insolvency.

RCom’s secured loan stands at about Rs 33,000 crore. Lenders had claimed Rs 49,000 crore in August last year. The company had earlier tried to sell assets to various companies, but the same didn’t materialise. Reliance Jio had cancelled the agreement to buy RCom assets saying that it did not want to bear the past liabilities of the beleaguered telecom company. The insolvency proceedings against the company started after Swedish telecom maker Ericsson moved complaint against RCom, as the latter failed to clear pending dues.