Videocon Case: Creditors May Lose Rs 90,000 Cr As Company Drowns

The Venugopal Dhoot owned Videocon Group is in debt amounting to Rs 90,000 crore to various public and private sector banks. This is likely to make the Videocon the biggest corporate bankruptcy case in Indian banking history, a source told to NDTV on April 4.

Breakdown of company’s misery

Videocon Industries Ltd (VIL) and Videocon Telecommunication Ltd (VTL) jointly owe Rs 59,451.87 crore and Rs 26,673.81 crore which is a whopping Rs 88,125.68 crore to Indian banks, headed by State Bank of India. Apart from that other 731 operational creditors have claimed Rs 3,111.80 crore (VIL) and Rs 1,267 crore (VTL) thus taking the total amount to more than Rs 90,000 crore.

Videocon group promoters, which includes Venugopal Dhoot, Pradipkumar Dhoot and Rajkumar Dhoot have also filed claims of Rs 57,823.24 crore on the basis of guarantees provided by them for various facilities availed/guaranteed by VIL, which are under evaluation.

A stupendous amount of Rs 1,786.95 crore is being claimed by the Videocon Telecommunication from Videocon Industries. All these data have been put on the company’s website by the company’s resolution professional (RP) between November 2018 to January 2019 in vary.

Biggest private sector bankruptcy?

The NDTV reported that according to various industry sources this will be the biggest private sector bankruptcy in India after the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code came into motion in 2016 for debt resolution. In 2018 after failing to pay its loans, the SBI sent the company to the National Company Tribunal (NCLT). On the basis of IBC regulations, the company’s board of directors were suspended and a Resolution Professional (RP) is appointed to manage its routine daily operations.

VIL owes 54 creditors, of which SBI paying the highest Rs 11,175 crore. Against the outstanding Rs 59,451.87 crore, the company has admitted Rs 57,443.62 crore while rejecting Rs 1,149 crore and the remaining Rs 782.24 crore are being verified.

On the other hand, VTL, owes 34 lenders, again SBI claiming the biggest at Rs 4,605.15 crore. The ICICI bank has also claimed Rs 3,318.08 crore on VIL and another Rs 1,439 crore on VTL.

What happened earlier?

The CBI on January 24, 2019, booked ex ICICI MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar, Deepak Kochhar, and Venugopal Dhoot in the ICICI-Videocon cheating case. CBI booked Chanda Kocchar on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating and abuse of official position for “dishonestly sanctioning to the Videocon Group”, reported the Economic Times.

Kochhar, who resigned from the CEO posts of ICICI bank on October 2018, was accused in the CBI FIR of allegedly receiving “illegal gratification through her husband, Deepak Kochhar, from Videocon MD VN Dhoot for sanctioning a term loan of Rs 300 crore to Videocon International Electronics Ltd”.

Apart from registering the First Information Report (FIR) in the ICICI-Videocon loan fraud case, the investigative agency also raided several locations. Of these Mumbai offices of Videocon, Deepak Kochhar’s NuPower Renewables, and Supreme Energy Pvt Ltd were on the top list.

The investigative agency has also mentioned several unknown public servants in the FIR. CBI further mentioned that senior banks officials such as former chairman KV Kamath (current president of New Development Bank), Sandeep Bakshi (current ICICI Bank MD), Sonjoy Chatterjee (CEO, Goldman Sachs India), Zarin Daruwala (CEO, Standard Chartered India), Rajiv Sabharwal (CEO, Tata Capital), Homi Khusrokhan, and K Ramkumar might also be probed related to the case, as they were in the sanctioning committee that cleared loans amounting to Rs 1,575 crore.

Also Read: ICICI Fires Chanda Kochhar Over Rs 3,250 Crore Loan; Will Take Back Bonuses Paid In Last 9 Years