The last date to bid for the stressed asset of Bhushan Steel has been extended to February 3 from January 25 as the lenders expect more bids from interested corporates.
This is the second extension of bidding deadline as they have already pushed the date once from January 18.
The top contenders for Bhushan Steel asset include JSW Steel, Tata Steel, Vedanta and the UK-based Liberty House.
Once the bids are submitted a cooling period of one week will be allowed and a clear winner will emerge in a week’s time thereafter, said sources in the know.
While JSW Steel has shown keen interest to buyout Bhushan Steel, Anil Agarwal-owned Vedanta may emerge as a dark house with aggressive bidding, they added.
The mining giant Vedanta has been showing keen interest to enter the steel business and has already bagged Kolkata-headquartered Electrosteel Steels pipping the nearest rival Tata Steel by a wide margin.
Vedanta had agreed to pay ₹4,500 crore for Electrosteel asset against Tata Steel’s offer of ₹3,500 crore. It reliably learned that Vedanta has also agreed with the Committee of Creditors to pay an additional ₹600 crore.
With the Bhushan’s production capacity of 5.6 million tonnes at the iron ore belt in Odisha, Vedanta is expected to bid more aggressively as the asset is much larger than Electrosteel.
JSW Steel in joint venture with Aion Capital is almost certain to bag Monnet Ispat and Energy as it was the only bidder for the asset. It had submitted a resolution plan of ₹3,500 crore that involves paying ₹2,500 crore to lenders and an equity investment of ₹1,000 crore.
Bhushan Steel was referred to the National Company Law Tribunal to recover debt of ₹46,000 crore.
The intense competition among corporates may help lenders to extract more value from the stressed asset.