Kishore Biryani-led Future Group companies will convene meetings of shareholders and creditors on 20 April and 21 April to get their approval for ₹24,713 crore deal with Reliance. The group companies informed the exchanges about the same.
The meetings will be held virtually through video conferencing and other audio-visual means.
The move comes after National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) had allowed the group companies to conduct the meetings of its shareholders and creditors seeking their approval for the composite scheme of arrangement between Future and Reliance.
The tribunal had also rejected the plea of e-commerce major Amazon, which is contesting Future Group's deal with Reliance Retail, part of oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries.
The ongoing legal tussle between Future Group and Amazon is over the sale of Future’s retail assets to Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd.
Last year, NCLT had stayed the shareholders and creditors meeting stating that no meeting will be conducted until further orders from the tribunal.
Essentially, Reliance Industries arm --Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL) had proposed a deal to acquire the entire retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing businesses of the Future Group.
The deal is being opposed by Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC on the asset sale arguing that its investment of ₹1,400 crores in Future Coupons, which is one of promoters of Future Retail, allows it block asset sale to Amazon's competitors.
Recently, Future Retail accused Reliance Industries of forcefully taking over stores and asserted that it did not handover any of the retail units to the oil-to-telecom conglomerate.
Future - which has more than 1,700 outlets, including popular Big Bazaar stores - has been unable to make lease payments for a bulk of its outlets.
With landlords insisting on payments or shutting down of stores, Reliance transferred the leases of some stores to its name and sublet them to Future to operate the stores. It also offered all the 30,000 employees of Future Retail jobs.
In addition, a majority of inventory at these stores was being supplied by Reliance JioMart as a cash-strapped FRL could not clear dues to existing suppliers.
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