Tata, Godrej, Adani Show Interest In Buying Sahara Properties

As the Sahara Group is desperate to raise money by selling off its land parcels, in order to deposit the same with SEBI as directed by Superme Court; Corporate giants like Adani, Godrej, Tatas and Patanjali shown their interest in these 30 properties worth 7,400 crores.

Auctioned by the real estate consultants Knight Frank India, major real estate developers including Omaxe, HNI and Eldeco have also shown their interest in these properties equally. One public sector firm Indian oil is also in the league of buying these properties of Sahara Group. Sahara group has also decided to auction its one of the hospital in Lucknow, which a Chennai based Apollo Hospital is seeking for. The evaluation and due-diligence process has already been initiated by hospital and they have also submitted an expression of interest to Sahara Group. All these high-end value transactions shall be allotted with 2-3 months due-diligence period to its prospective buyers. However the names of these prospective buyers have not been disclosed yet.

The group has to raise an amount of Rs. 7400 crores within three months from the sale proceeds of 30 land parcels and has to deposit its first installment by June 17. As the Sahara group is in hurry to close these deals, it may also impact the valuation and sale process to an extent. The deals are expected to in process and not materialized yet. However, the details have been submitted to the Supreme Court.

Land parcels at Pune are still at the preliminary stage with Knight Frank running a bidding process for them. Godrej Properties is eyeing on to these land parcels. Omaxe and Eldeco yet not clarified the land parcels in which they are fairly interested but confirm that they are also interested in some of the properties which are to be sell-off by Sahara Group.

Financial bids are also invited by Sahara group from some of the shortlisted educational institutes that have shown their expression of interest for properties. Sahara group’s township Aamby Valley worth Rs. 1 lakh crore has also been directed to put up for auction by Supreme Court, earlier this week. Now the group fears that hurried sale may largely impact on its sale proceeds by favoring to the ones who are looking for cheap deals. Now the Supreme court has redirected an amount of Rs. 10,500 crore by July-August 2017 including the installment amount of Rs. 7400 crores to be due in June.

The group has commited to raise Rs. 1500 crores from the sale proceeds of its overseas hotels within 45 days and Rs. 800 crore each from its Ghaziabad land and Vasai land thus total amounting to Rs. 3100 crores. As the SEBI found it difficult to auction them with the help of specialized agencies, the group was allowed to sell its certain properties on February 28. A period of six months has been granted to the group in which it is expected to complete the sale of properties worth Rs.5,092 crores.

In order to execute the sale, Sahara further appointed Knight Frank and given a deadline to complete the sale by April 13 to meet the Supreme Court deadlines.. But as the prospective buyers are demanding more time to go through various stages of acquisition of such high value transactions as they are intended for optimal value realization. While Apollo soughed an extension of time for the purpose of due-dilligence, evaluation and inspection of the property, Indian Oil explained that they need extention in the time-frame to seek reports and approvals from various agencies and departments in order to execute the purchase deed.

163 expressions of interest and 59 prospective buyers have been acquired by Sahara group for its 30 properties by advertising twice in various newspapers across country. However the group has not commented on every prospective buyer, it disclosed that the deals are under various stages and will get materialize soon.

Over last four years, the group has already deposited an average of Rs. 250 crores per month that turns out to be a total amount of Rs. 12000 crores in SEBI-Sahara account. This account was created with the purpose of generating funds for the refund of its bondholders and conglomerate claims that more than 93% of the money has already been refunded to the investors directly.

Sahara group has highlighted its obedience to Court’s order by insisting upon the fact that depositing a whooping amount of Rs. 250 crores per month consistently from last 4 years is a big deal according to Indian corporate standards. It is worth notable that this huge amount has been deposited every month after repaying more than 93% of its liabilities towards – Sahara Housing Investment Corporation Limited and Sahara Indian Real Estate Corporation Limited.
The group claimed that as it has already paid more than Rs.22000 crore of liability, the additional Rs. 12000 crore is indeed a duplication of the payment. The various 30 properties advertised by the group for the purpose of sale are located across India – Delhi, Indore, Pune, Coimbatore, Lucknow, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Guna, Haridwar, Bareilly, Aligarh, Faridabad, Dewas, Guwahati, Jhansi, Gwalior, Kanpur, Noida/Greater Noida, Porbandar, Patna and Kurukshetra.