Cosmea pulls out of race to acquire Reliance Capital

Mumbai-based NBFC Cosmea Financial Holdings has pulled out of the race to acquire debt-ridden Reliance Capital (RCL) under an insolvency run bid process, sources said. Cosmea combined with Piramal Group had put in a bid to acquire Anil Ambani Group's erstwhile company but sources said Piramal still continues to be interested in the auction process. According to sources, the consortium had submitted the highest binding bid for Reliance Capital assets. The planned e-auction for RCL, as approved by the committee of creditors (CoC), is scheduled to be held on December 21, and the exit of the highest bidder on the eve of the auction has come as a big jolt to the lenders. The reason for the pull out, as per sources, is attributed to the contours of the bidding process being significantly altered, whereby the base bid in the auction itself requires a significant increase of approx Rs 15 billion over and above the highest bid, to start participating in the process. The CoC has fixed a floor value of Rs 65 billion for the auction, which is Rs 15 billion more than the Net Present Value (NPV) of the Cosmea-Piramal resolution plan. Further, sources said, the increments in the auction process for the second and third rounds have also been set at a very steep level of Rs 10 billion each. With the exit, there are now only three players left in the race--Hinduja, Torrent, and Oaktree. Also read UP Metro plans to commercialise Lucknow LDA land Schneider Electric to invest in Bengaluru’s smart factory