Comments
Lodha Developers, India’s one of largest real-estate companies that has now been rechristened as Macrotech Developers, has made an application to market regulator SEBI seeking permission to drop Abhinandan Lodha from the promoter group. Abhinandan is the younger sibling of Abhishek Lodha, MD of Macrotech and eldest son of Mangal Prabhat Lodha, the founder promoter of Lodha Group.
While the company and its MD Abhishek Lodha did not reply on the question of any family dispute or settlement being the reason to drop the name of his younger brother from promoter category, source in the know said there could have been a settlement worked out under which the younger sibling is giving up the promoter tag.
The net debt of Macrotech is more than ₹16,000 crore. As per its FY20 annual report, its consolidated revenues stood at ₹12,486 crore. Macrotech has been involved in luxury projects including the Trump Towers in Mumbai and Grosvenor House in London.
Third attempt to raise money
This is the third attempt by the company to raise money via IPO and it filed a draft red herring prospectus with SEBI on February 16. According to a disclosure on page 213 of the prospectus, Macrotech has sought “exemption under Regulation 300 of the SEBI (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) ICDR Regulations from considering and disclosing Abhinandan as a member of the ‘promoter group’ of the company and body corporate in which he or any Hindu undivided family or firm where he is a member.”
In other words, Macrotech or its group companies are disassociating from Abhinandan. To a query from BusinessLine , the company said, “There is no shareholding of Abhinandan Mangal Prabhat Lodha in the company – Macrotech Developers Limited.” Responding to the query on whether Abhinandan had refused to sign any documents related to the IPO, the company said, “Abhinandan has provided all required documents from members of the promoter group for the purposes of the IPO.”
However, disclosures on the prospectus show that Abhinandan was allotted several shares in the company in the past along with his elder brother and father. But it is likely that there has been an internal transfer of shares later and Abhinandan has exited his holding.
Reportedly, the Lodha Group had issued a statement to a leading Mumbai based daily in 2015 wherein it said that Abhinandan would focus on the financial services arm of the group including the listed finance company Roselabs and Abhishek would be involved with real estate.
As per the latest shareholding of Roselabs, Macrotech owns 75 per cent stake. Abhinandan could not be reached for comments.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.