Authum Investment and Infrastructure Ltd will acquire second Anil Ambani group firm Reliance Commercial Finance after lenders approved its resolution plan, according to a person aware of the development. After several rounds of bidding and negotiations, Authum’s Rs 1,585 Crore (around $212.7 million) plan received over 80% vote share of the lenders which have already received Rs 1,240 Crore ($166 million) as cash. Besides Authum, domestic and foreign investors including JM Financial ARC, Edelweiss ARC, UGRO Capital and UV ARC and Asset Reconstruction Company (India) Ltd (Arcil) were in the race for the asset.

The Reserve Bank of India may tweak the ‘skin in the game’ criteria for Asset Reconstruction Companies (ARCs) in cases where they link-up with an investor to buy stressed assets from lenders on 100 per cent cash basis. Pallav Mohapatra, MD & CEO, Arcil, said: “What we want is that when an ARC, along with an investor, acquires a stressed asset on a 100 per cent cash basis from a bank, in such cases the regulator should, I think, reduce the 15 per cent requirement of contribution by ARCs. This can be reduced to 5 per cent.” Mohapatra underscored that investors are proactive when it comes to seeking regular updates on resolution of stressed assets and recovery. Hence, ARCs will be on their toes despite lower skin in the game.

Two new bids have recently been received by creditors of the debt-ridden Lavasa township, which was earlier under the control of Hindustan Construction Company (HCC). The outstanding loans currently amount to Rs 6,000 Crore. Both Dhir and Darwin Projects did not respond to queries sent by Moneycontrol. Emails to Lavasa's Insolvency Resolution Professional (IRP) Shailesh Verma also remained unanswered. People in the know said that the two bids come with the condition that the project will receive environmental clearance. The lenders to the project, who include Bank of India, Axis Bank, L&T Finance, and asset reconstruction companies Arcil, Edelweiss, and Acre, had met on August 11.

Asset reconstruction companies (ARCs) are eyeing stressed retail and small business borrowers as the next big growth opportunity as banks see more stress building up in these sectors, according to Pallav Mohapatra, managing director and chief executive officer, Asset Reconstruction Company (India) Ltd (Arcil). ARCs can focus on acquiring and recovering small-ticket bad loans with the help of technology following the creation of the National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL), Mohapatra said in an interview. Lenders have decided to initially transfer 22 bad loan accounts totalling ₹89,000 Crore to the proposed NARCL, aiding the cleanup of their balance sheets. The aggregate amount of bad loans likely to be transferred in tranches will be ₹2 trillion.

Creditors to the former Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) controlled Lavasa township have received two bids for their Rs 6,000 Crore loans outstanding in a third round of bids for the debt-laden company. Union Bank of India (UBI) is the lead lender in the project with an outstanding loan of Rs 600 Crore. Other lenders include Bank of India, Axis Bank, Punjab National Bank and State Bank of India. L&T Finance, the NBFC from the engineering to IT L&T group, is also a creditor along with asset reconstruction companies Arcil, Edelweiss, and Acre. Lenders have been frustrated with the multiple pullbacks by bidders since the account was taken to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in 2018.