Airline told to
sell non-core assets
Mumbai, July 5:
Banks have told
Kingfisher Airlines to come up with a concrete action plan to improve its
operations within a fortnight. Currently, the private carrier’s operations are
hobbled. Its fleet strength has dropped to 13 from 64 last November.
With the
debt-laden airline reportedly defaulting on lease rentals of over Rs 1,000
crore, lessors recently repossessed 34 aircraft.
Bankers say
that given its current fleet strength and truncated operations schedule, the
beleaguered airline cannot be turned around.
While the
airline promoter is banking on the proposed liberalisation in foreign direct
investment in the aviation sector, bankers’ patience appears to be wearing
thin. Debtor-creditor meetings held so far have not yielded any result.
Small dent in
debt
The airline has
been asked to put non-core assets — Kingfisher House in Mumbai and the
promoter’s villa in Goa — on the block. This will lighten its debt burden, but
only a tad.
Pointing out
that the airline’s assets will barely cover 10 per cent of the Rs 7,000
crore,it owes a consortium of 17 banks, a senior public sector bank official
said if banks precipitate action then the corporate guarantee and promoter
guarantee for loans taken could be invoked.
However, the
cash-strapped airline, in a statement, said the meeting with the consortium of
bankers was scheduled as an “update meeting” and there was “no discussion on
commencement of recovery proceedings”.
“Kingfisher
House has been lying vacant after the staff moved to our new offices at The
Qube in Mumbai, and even at that time, on our own accord, we approached the
banks with a proposal to liquidate this unutilised asset. At today’s meeting,
we raised the issue of this pending approval,” the KFA spokesperson said.
Kingfisher
House was the airline’s corporate headquarters till it decided to put the
building on the block to raise funds. The airline is planning to raise between
Rs 90-100 crore selling this building.
Market share
In
late-September last year, Mr Vijay Mallya, Chairman of UB Group, said the
company had moved into a new building in Mumbai and that Kingfisher House was
redundant. “So, we will obviously look to sell it. Any initiative that we can
take to reduce our debt is going to be pursued,” he had said then.
KFA saw its
domestic market share fall from second to the last in just six months.
Global airline
consultancy firm Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) estimates that
Kingfisher Airlines has a funding requirement of close to $1 billion, of which
$500-600 million is needed immediately. CAPA estimates an additional funding
requirement of $300-400 million in the next fiscal.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/article3607131.ece
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