The government is looking at various options to sell the crisis-hit Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS), said a senior government official here on Monday.

Speaking on the sidelines of the national conference on public procurement and competition law, organised by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Injeti Srinivas, Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, said, “Whatever is in the best interest of the stakeholders, including public interest, will be the factor which guides.”

“As far as IL&FS is concerned I think the report which has been submitted to the NCLT articulates the approach. So it could be in the best scenario that IL&FS as a group enterprise is sold as a going concern,” he added.

Alternative approaches

But there are serious issues and the likelihood of such an outcome is limited, he explained. The alternative approaches that are being explored are selling separate verticals, where it would go as one consolidated entity and an asset level sale.

Srinivas said, “but what seems most probable is that you will have a combination of all the three approaches. All the three approaches in some sort of permutation and combination can ultimately be the outcome.”

Liquidity crisis

Talking about the liquidity crisis in finance sector, Srinivas explained that it is a problem across the sector and more pronounced in few companies.

“It is basically a segment of non-banking financial companies and housing finance companies facing liquidity problems,” he added.

While some measures have been taken at macro level, Srinivas said, “the way business is conducted by this sector, they will have to deeply introspect and adopt the model which is sustainable which takes into account sources of funds, deploy them so you minimise this mismatch.”

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