Binani cement takeover: utratech gets cci approval, dalmia bharat claims highest bid

Kolkata, March 28 (IANS) Amid the ongoing battle for taking over insolvent Binani Cement, UltraTech Cement on Wednesday said it has obtained the Competition Commission of India's (CCI)

approval on its bid for the debt-laden company while rival bidder, Dalmia Bharat said the reasons cited by the former for its bid were "misleading". "A lot of apprehensions

were raised by the Resolution Professional about UltraTech obtaining the CCI clearance on its bid for Binani Cement. CCI has today (Wednesday) cleared it. The company was rated the H2 bidder

instead of H1 (highest bidder), for this reason," the Aditya Birla group company said in a regulatory filing. According to it, the CCI clearance validates its contention that

"they were wrongly and unjustifiably rated H2 instead of H1". Rejecting this, Dalmia Cement (Bharat) limited's Group CEO Mahendra Singhi said: "The reasons cited by the

unsuccessful bidder for its failed bid, in stock exchange filings and press interviews, are misleading. We have made the highest financial bid and had also obtained the highest score in the

evaluation." He said the evaluation criteria for the bids was fair and made known to all the bidders before the bids. "We state emphatically that the likelihood of obtaining the

CCI approval by a bidder was not at all a criterion in bid evaluation. In fact, CCI approval was contemplated to be a post NClT approval step and hence had been made a carved-out condition

precedent to the resolution plans of all the resolution applicants," Singhi said. He also said "the only criteria involving regulatory orders was whether any adverse regulatory

order including an adverse CCI order imposing penalties had been passed against the bidder over the last 5 years". "No evidence has been cited to show that the COC (Committee of

Creditors) and its advisors did not make a correct assessment of bids," Singhi said. During the ongoing insolvency proceedings of Binani Cement, Resolution Professional Vijaykumar V

Iyer, submitted the resolution plan of Dalmia Bharat-controlled Rajputana Properties before the Kolkata bench of National Company law Tribunal as the "highest bidder" to take it

over. Binani Industries, the parent company of insolvent company, had submitted the application before the tribunal seeking termination of insolvency proceedings against its cement

manufacturing subsidiary and the company's counsel had said on Tuesday it could pay all its creditors within two weeks. The move came after the company concluded a commercial

understanding with the UltraTech Cement to sell its entire 98.43 per cent stake in its cement manufacturing subsidiary at a consideration of Rs 7,266 crore. (This story was auto-published

from a syndicated feed. No part of the story has been edited by THE QUINT.)