Mumbai, Jul 7: A day after admitting that it had long ago requested the lenders to sell two of its properties pledged with the banks—the Kingfisher House in Mumbai and Kingfisher Villa in Goa—the airline on Friday clarified that the Goan property is not on the block.
“The reported “sale” of Kingfisher Villa and Kingfisher House are factually incorrect. Kingfisher Villa (in Goa) is owned by United Breweries Holdings and was offered as security to Axis Bank whose loan was incorporated into the lenders consortium,” the airline said in an official statement.
The statement further claimed that “United Breweries Holdings had voluntarily applied to the consortium in February for permission to replace the security value of Kingfisher Villa with equivalent cash.”
On Thursday, several bankers had told PTI, after a meeting of the 17-bank consortium with the airline management, that they had hired HDFC Securities to do a valuation of these properties, which are valued at Rs 120 crore according to the current market price and come up with a report within 15 days.
On Thursday, the airline, in a statement, while denying any deadline by bankers, had admitted that the airline itself had long ago proposed sale of the idle Kingfisher House and the villa in Goa to the bankers a few months back.
However, on Friday it reiterated that the Kingfisher House in suburban Marol area is on the block.
“As far as Kingfisher House is concerned, this property is now vacant following the move to The Qube. This property is intended for sale and once again, the consortium was voluntarily approached for permission to sell with the proceeds being paid to the banks,” the official statement said.
The company also denied there was no talk about loan recovery- the airline owes Rs 7,500 crore and accumulated interest from January to 17 lenders, led by the consortium leader State Bank, which has an exposure of Rs 1400 crore- at the meeting with the bankers on Thursday.
“The meeting of the bank consortium was convened in the normal course with a properly circulated agenda. There was no discussion on loan recovery or forced sale of any collateral,” it said.
On the number of aircraft it has, the airline said it has 44 aircrafts endorsed in its AoP and intends to operationalise its full fleet post recapitalisation.
Last week, quoting lessors and airline sources, PTI had reported that the lessors had taken back as many as 34 aircraft as the airline was not able to pay their dues running into over Rs 1,000 crore, reducing its fleet strength to just about 18.
“Plans for recapitalisation were shared with the banker as also the status of the company's discussions with prospective investors. No deadlines whatsoever were discussed or imposed yesterday,” it said.
It further said the State Bank is the leader of the lenders' consortium and is the only bank that can issue statements, if any, on behalf of the consortium and the status of loans provided to Kingfisher.
It has also said the airline has not laid off staff because it believes that a ramp up of operations is possible post recapitalisation.
“The airline continues to employ staff currently surplus to its “holding” operations.”
On the much delayed salaries, it admitted that there are delays in salary payment but this is being addressed seriously, and that salary disbursements have already commenced from yesterday and will continue on a regular basis.
The lenders have been demanding at least Rs 1,000 crore in fresh capital by promoters as a pre-condition for considering the airline's request for working capital loans of around Rs 2,000 crore.
This was a pre-condition that lenders had insisted at the previous meeting in March too.
Out of the total loan of Rs 7500 crore, SBI alone has an exposure of over Rs 1,400 crore, followed by PNB (Rs 700 crore), Bank of Baroda (around Rs 500 crore). Private lender ICICI Bank, which had Rs 430 crore exposure, earlier this week sold its debt to a hedge fund run by Srei Infra.
The airline, which had not made any single penny in profit launch in May 2005, has also an accumulated loss of over Rs 7500 crore.
Earlier SBI chairman Pratip Chaudhari had told a business channel that without fresh capital infusion it will be difficult for the airlines to be revived.
He also said that all is not lost on the airline and that he still has faith in the airline management. He also ruled out selling his loan to the airline to anyone as ICICI had done earlier this week.
