News Hour- Kingfisher Airlines gets offer from 2 desi investors for Rs 800 cr: Vijay Mallya

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: The beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines has received recapitalization offers from two large Indian investors for Rs 800 crore, airline chairman Vijay Mallya said. The investor would pick up 24% stake if the deal was clinched, he added. 

"There's a deal offer from two Indian investors to recapitalize. We have their termsheets," Mallya told TOI. He declined to specify whether the investors were from large Indian corporate houses. "They are large investors, and I would leave it there," he said. 

A third potential investor was an investment fund from Hong Kong. Last month, The Economic Times reported that SC Lowy, a specialist firm focused on illiquid assets, was discussing $280 million investment in the airline carrying debts estimated at over Rs 7,000 crore. 

Mallya's senior executives have said that there are investors who would pump fresh equity in the hope of divesting the stake at a gain to strategic investors after government allows foreign carriers are allowed to invest in Indian airlines. The union cabinet is expected to decide on allowing foreign airlines to take up to 49% in domestic carriers sometime next month. 

Mallya said there was no agreement with the lenders for a fresh loan yet, and also denied any deal with a foreign airline as speculated in media recently. State Bank of India (SBI) led consortium of 18 banks will meet next week to discuss whether or not to extend fresh loans to Kingfisher, based on a new feasibility report from SBI Caps. 
Banks would like to see the promoter facilitating fresh equity infusion into the airline, which has been talked about for sometime now. 

Gulf carriers Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways too denied reports about their interest in Kingfisher. Interestingly , this isn't the first time Kingfisher has been linked to Abu Dhabi government owned airline Etihad and the Al-Nahyan royal family, which has several investment arms. 

Kingfisher's troubles mounted in the past ten days after tax authorities attached its accounts citing non-payment of dues, forcing the airline to ground most of its aircrafts. This led to flight cancellations and the DGCA summoning the airline management, which has since then submitted a fresh plan to operate 28 out of the 64 aircrafts in its fleet.
(Source- http://economictimes.indiatimes.com)