NEW DELHI | MUMBAI: The newly reconstituted board of debt-laden property developer Unitech has appointed Deloitte to prepare a resolution framework for the company. The Supreme Court had approved the nomination of seven directors to the board of Unitech, now being run by the government. The board was constituted on January 21.
The decision to appoint Deloitte was taken after a board meeting, a person aware of the matter told ET. The board is expected to submit the resolution plan by March 20. "They will give us the framework based in which we will finalise and approve the resolution plan. The objective is to complete stuck projects," said the person.
Senior executives of Unitech had made a formal presentation to the board to help it understand the company's projects and other details.
Deloitte did not respond to queries.
The new board had been given two months to submit a resolution plan.
Another director said the board is not likely to seek an extension from the Supreme Court and is confident of coming up with a resolution plan before the deadline. Once the board is able to demonstrate the plan's viability, Unitech's projects can access the government's 25,000-crore fund for last-mile financing of stuck housing projects. The court may permit the board to collect the money due from homebuyers and sell unsold inventory and unclaimed inventory available for reselling. Further, the board will be allowed to monetise the unencumbered assets of the company for completion of housing units. In addition, the court may release funds with it pertaining to the company or its management. The directors include real estate and financing sector stalwarts such as HDFC's Renu Sud Karnad, Hiranandani Group's Niranjan Hiranandani, Jitu Virwani of Embassy Group and state-run NBCC's former chairman Anoop Kumar Mittal. According to findings of a forensic audit report submitted to the court, funds received from homebuyers were diverted to purposes unrelated to the 74 projects.
February 29, 2020
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