49 Players Including Reliance, Adani & Jindal Power Show Interest In Future Retail

On Monday morning the debt ridden Future Retail announced a list of entities expressing interest to acquire the assets of the company. The details were shared by the company through an exchange filing in which names of 49 players including Reliance Retail, Jindal Power Ltd and Adani group have submitted Expression of Interest (EoI).

Future Retail, which is currently going through insolvency resolution process, is under the wing of Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd, is the holding company for retail operations of RIL and April Moon Retail Private Ltd. It is a joint venture between Adani Airport holdings and Flemingo group also have submitted their EOI, after the lenders of Future Retail decided to invite fresh bids after dividing FRL's assets into clusters.

According to the stock exchange filing of Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd, 49 entities have submitted their expression of interest to submit a resolution plan as prospective resolution applicants for Future Retail Limited pursuant to the Form G and 'Invitation to submit Expressions of Interest' ("IEOI"), each dated 23rd March 2023 published by the Resolution Professional, are included in the provisional list of eligible prospective resolution applicants in terms of Regulation 36A(10) of the IBBI (Insolvency Resolution Process for Corporate Persons) Regulations, 2016 ("CIRP Regulations")

Some of the other players who have submitted Expression of Interest (EoI) include Century Copper Corp, Greentech worldwide, Sahara Enterprises, Harsha Vardhan Reddy, J C Flowers Asset Reconstruction Pvt Ltd, Pinnacle Air Pvt Ltd, Universal Associates and WHSmith Travel Ltd among others.

On March 23, 2023 creditors of Future Retail invited new expressions of interest where prospective buyers can bid for the debt-ridden firm "as a going concern or individual cluster or a combination of clusters of its assets", as it failed to attract a resolution plan in over four months.

Earlier, it had received EOI and finalised 11 prospective bidders including Reliance and April Moon Retail, but could not get a resolution plan despite two extensions in deadline for submissions. The Committee of Creditors had provided two options in the EoI, for which the last date for submission was April 7, 2023.

In the first option, the Prospective Resolution Applicant (PRA) could bid for the acquisition of Future Retail as a whole, including its shareholding interest in its subsidiaries. While under the second option, Future Retail's business has been distributed in five clusters diving business, in which PRAs can bid for "any individual cluster or any combination of clusters."

Giving its reasons, the new EOI had said "having regard to the complexity and scale of operations of FRL, the resolution professional has, in consultation with and prior approval of the CoC of FRL, categorized the business of the corporate debtor in five clusters." CIRP was initiated against FRL by its lender Bank of India after it defaulted on loans.

As per the provisions of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code, expression of interest was invited from prospective bidders on October 04, 2022. Later, it was reissued and the submission date was extended for the Resolution Plan.