Major firms vie for ₹17,300 crore JAL assets

Several large business groups, including JSW, Dalmia Bharat, Vedanta, and others, are interested in acquiring Jaiprakash Associates Ltd (JAL) as it goes through court-monitored insolvency. The company's assets up for sale include cement plants, a Formula One circuit, and various other properties. The deadline for interested bidders to submit their offers is March 25. Among the bidders are major players like Jindal Power, GMR, Welspun, and Torrent, with the Adani Group also expected to submit a bid. The total value of JAL's assets is estimated to be over ₹17,300 crore, or about $2 billion. This stage of the bidding process involves submitting expressions of interest, but not all interested parties will necessarily make final bids. Last week, a National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) directed JAL's resolution professional to invite plans that consider all of JAL's assets together rather than selling them separately. Previously, there was a plan to market the assets in parts, but this idea was rejected by the tribunal. JAL has significant assets, including cement plants with a capacity of 10 million tonnes, the Buddh International Circuit, a large land parcel on the Noida expressway, an engineering business, a fertiliser plant, and five hotels. Recently, JAL's lenders assigned loans worth about ₹48,000 crore to the National Asset Reconstruction Co Ltd for ₹12,700 crore. There is debate among creditors about the best way to process JAL's assets. Some believe selling them in parts could yield higher prices, while others argue it could lead to undervaluation. The NCLT has supported the idea of selling the assets as a whole. JAL was brought to insolvency in June last year after defaulting on loans led by ICICI Bank.