Commercial banks which
have lent over Rs.7,000 crore to Kingfisher Airlines are closely monitoring the situation and are
tightening
the noose around its promoter to protect their
interest.
They may
take drastic steps, including auctioning the mortgaged assets or selling pledged shares
in case the airline
fails to come up with a revival plan in the next three weeks.
State Bank of India
(SBI), the lead
banker of the
17 member lenders’ consortium, with exposures of over Rs.1,400 crore to
Kingfisher, said it was concerned about the current situation and was
waiting to hear from the management.
“We are talking to them daily.
It (the lock
out) is a matter of concern but what we can do? Our efforts are on to recover the maximum
by all possible means,” said S. Visvanathan, Managing Director, SBI. “The banks
are looking at all aspects to ensure that money given to them (Kingfisher)
will be recovered,” Mr. Visvanathan added. By the end of this month, Kingfisher should come
up with a revival plan which the banks will closely examine. SBI Caps has
been entrusted with this task but banks have made it clear that there will
be no morerestructuring this time. The airline has told banks that the loans
could be repaid by flying all the aircraft to generate money and by
roping in a foreign partner. “Let us not second guess. They will
come out with something. Our effort is to ensure that our interest is protected
at all costs,” the SBI MD said.
The banks
also confirmed that Rs.60 crore had been released to Kingfisher from an escrow
account that was de-frozen by the tax authorities. However, the airline
has not paid salary to employees so far. “We are still waiting to hear from the management.
We don’t know what is Mr. Vijay Mallya upto? He is not saying any thing,” said
a striking employee.
Meanwhile, the lock
out is expected to be extended till October 20. The deadline
of the DGCA
show cause notice ends on October 19.
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