Mumbai: Reliance Infrastructure Chairman Anil Ambani on Tuesday said the company will be completely debt-free this financial year.
RInfra, which is sitting on a debt of over Rs 6,000 crore, has been working towards monetising its assets to reduce debt.
Addressing the company's 91st annual shareholders meeting through an online platform, Ambani said, "RInfra will be a debt-free company this year."
In 2018, the company sold its Mumbai energy business to Adani Transmission for nearly Rs 18,800 crore, which reduced its debt to nearly Rs 7,500 crore.
In January this year, the company said it had received an in-principle approval from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for sale of its Delhi-Agra toll road to Singapore-based Cube Highways and Infrastructure for Rs 3,600 crore. According to the company, the deal is on track.
Ambani further said RInfra has around Rs 60,000 crore of receivables stuck in regulatory and arbitration matters which are pending for 5-10 years.
He further said the company has assets of over Rs 65,000 crore and a networth of over Rs 11,000 crore.
On the COVID-19 related update, Ambani said, "the engineering and construction projects are fully operational with 5,000 people working on sites. All the road toll collection is already at 75 per cent of pre-COVID-19 period and will achieve 100 per cent in the next few weeks."
The country was under lockdown for the past two months to curb the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ambani further said the defence joint ventures with Dassault and Thales are fully operational at Mihan. He also noted that the BSES distribution companies in Delhi operated through the pandemic.
RCom loans: Anil Ambani claims no personal guarantee given to three Chinese banks
Anil Ambani has claimed that he had not given any personal guarantee for a borrowing made by Reliance Communications (RCom) from three Chinese banks against the backdrop of a UK court directing him to pay USD 717 million to the three lenders.
He, however, seemed to indicate that he did give a personal guarantee to India's largest lender SBI, which has moved the the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to recover Rs 1,200 crore.
In both the cases -- SBI and Chinese banks -- the borrowings have been done by a group company and are not personal, he said.
Ambani said he had only signed "a power of attorney limited to executing a non-binding letter of comfort to the Chinese banks" when the now-bankrupt RCom borrowed money in 2012."
"The guarantee on the basis of which the claim was made was admittedly not signed by him," a RInfra statement said quoting Ambani, who is the company's chairman.
Ambani, who had to rely on help from elder brother Mukesh Ambani to pay Rs 462 crore to Ericsson last year in a different matter, would be availing legal remedies available in India to contest the claims by the Chinese banks.
An inability to personally deposit a sum of USD 100 million has shut out his defence in the UK courts, the statement added.
"As per the UK Court's order, the final amount owed under the alleged guarantee will be assessed based on the outcome of the RCom insolvency resolution process," the statement quoted Anil Ambani as saying.
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The case relates to Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Development Bank and Exim Bank of China dragging Anil Ambani to a court in UK as part of their recovery efforts in the USD 925 million loan to RCom. On May 22 this year, a court had directed Ambani to pay up USD 717 million.
Justice Nigel Teare at the Commercial Division of the High Court of England and Wales in London had ruled that a personal guarantee disputed by Anil Ambani is binding on him.
On the case filed by SBI this month, Anil Ambani said the claim has arisen out of a guarantee given for a loan which was availed by RCom and Reliance Infratel Ltd (RITL) in 2016 to repay the Chinese banks and certain other Indian banks.
Anil Ambani said he was defending himself against the claims by both SBI and the Chinese banks and "firmly believes that upon the resolution of RCom and RITL's debt as per their resolution plans filed before NCLT, a significant proportion, if not the whole, of the said debts will stand discharged and all these matters satisfactorily resolved," as per the statement.
It can be noted that the NCLT is presiding over RCom's debt resolution case and according to media reports, the 38 Indian lenders' haircut will stand at only 30 per cent of Rs 33,000 crore secured debt owed by the company, if a latest resolution plan goes through.
Anil Ambani also told the shareholders that "his sole desire was to assist the RCom Group and not to make any personal gains" and assured that these legal battles would not have any bearing on RInfra's future prospects.
According to the media reports, Reliance Jio has offered around Rs 4,700 crore for the tower and fiber assets of RCom's subsidiary RITL.
(PTI Report)
