BackMaytas plans to restructure debt, appoint committee
Maytas plans to restructure debt, appoint committee
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Hyderabad: Construction firm Maytas Infra Ltd, partly owned by the family of B. Ramalinga Raju, jailed founder of fraud-hit Satyam Computer Services Ltd, will soon restructure its debt by talking to lenders, a top official said.
Ved Jain, one of two government-nominated directors on Maytas’ board, said: “We are planning to discuss with the lenders on constituting a debt restructuring body, taking into account the difficulties the company is currently in."
Jain is a former president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, the country’s accounting standards body.
The government had appointed two directors as its nominees and the newly constituted board met for the first time on Thursday at Hyderabad, took stock of affairs and decided to meet all stakeholders, including lenders, vendors and consortium partners.
Talking to reporters after the board meeting, Jain said: “We expect that by 25 March an agreement with the lenders will take place, which will be referred to the corporate debt restructuring board."
As on 31 March, the company had borrowings of Rs1,588.54 crore that include secured loans of Rs756.67 crore and unsecured loans of Rs179.03 crore.
The meeting was attended by Jain and O.P. Vaish, an expert on taxation, who is the second government nominee, as well as promoter-director and vice-chairman B. Teja Raju, and B. Narasimha Rao. Another board member, R.P. Raju, did not attend the board meeting.
Teja Raju is the elder son of Ramalinga Raju.
Vaish said Maytas has sought a six-month extension from the Andhra Pradesh government after it failed to meet financial closure for the Rs12,312 crore Hyderabad Metro rail project within the deadline that ended on Wednesday.
Financial closure is achieved when a firm produces commitments from lenders on funds for a project.
The infrastructure firm has come under the scanner of agencies investigating the Satyam swindle, after the software firm’s disgraced founder admitted to have fudged accounts to the tune of Rs7,136 crore over several years.
The company’s stock gained 0.14% on Thursday to close at Rs35.35 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, on a day that saw its benchmark Sensex index gaining 0.28%.
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