Mumbai: NARCL plans to submit a bid of around ₹900 crore to acquire the stressed debt of Videocon Oil Ventures (VOVL). The total admitted claims amount to ₹30,640 crore, including accumulated interest.
VOVL, the oil and gas exploration arm of the Videocon group, was admitted into insolvency in 2019, after the parent conglomerate collapsed under a debt burden.
A spokesperson at NARCL did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
NARCL has been engaged with lenders on the account for nearly six months. An initial lower indicative offer was discussed earlier, but valuation differences and structural complexities delayed progress, the people cited above said. Lenders’ expectations were significantly higher in view of the size of the admitted claims.
The account also involves overseas legal structures and contractual arrangements, adding to the due diligence challenges. NARCL is understood to have consulted sector experts and industry participants before firming up its revised offer.
Following the extended negotiations, the bad bank has now formally decided to submit a bid of around ₹900 crore. Based on this offer, the banks could conduct a Swiss Challenge process.
If successful, the acquisition would add to NARCL’s pipeline of large non-performing assets as it works towards meeting its annual resolution targets. NARCL’s bid is in an 85:15 structure where 15 per cent is paid in cash and the remaining 85 per cent is paid in security receipts which are backed by government guarantee.
Government guarantee will be invoked to cover the shortfall between the amount realised from the underlying assets and the face value of SRs issued for that asset, subject to overall ceiling of ₹30,600 crore, valid for 5 years. NARCL is intended to resolve stressed loan assets above ₹500 crore each amounting to about ₹2 lakh crore.
As of March 31, 2025, NARCL had managed ₹1.6 lakh crore in debt with ₹29,000 crore of assets under management.
