Lenders, bondholders, employees and other creditors to Dewan Housing Finance Corp. Ltd (DHFL) have claimed dues of Rs.87,905.6 crore under the insolvency resolution process, showed data on the debt-laden shadow lender’s website.

This does not include holders of fixed deposits (FD), to whom DHFL owed ₹6,188 crore as on 6 July. The claims were submitted to DHFL’s administrator R. Subramaniakumar, a former managing director and chief executive of Indian Overseas Bank.

According to the latest available data, financial creditors, including bondholders, have claimed dues of ₹86,892.3 crore. While bondholders have claimed Rs.45,550.07 crore, lenders and other financial creditors have sought Rs.41,342.23 crore from the mortgage lender.

State Bank of India (including SBI Singapore) is the largest lender with a claim of Rs.10,082.9 crore, followed by Bank of India ( Rs.4,125.52 crore), Canara Bank ( Rs.2681.81 crore), National Housing Bank ( rs.2,433.79 crore), Union Bank of India ( rs.2,378.05 crore), Syndicate Bank ( Rs.2,229.29 crore) and Bank of Baroda ( Rs.2,074.92 crore).

Interestingly, the administrator has also received claims of Rs.950.53 crore from a group of four real estate companies. These have been classified as “creditors other than financial and operational creditors". The largest of these is from Neelkamal Realtors Tower Pvt. Ltd of Rs.757.65 crore. Neelkamal is a subsidiary of Mumbai-based real estate company DB Realty.

Subramaniakumar has, so far, admitted claims of ₹80,979.85 crore from financial creditors and Rs.1.81 crore from employees. He is yet to admit any claim from operational creditors or the four real estate companies cited above.

On 20 November, the RBI superseded DHFL’s board and later referred the mortgage lender to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). The central bank’s initiative seeks to secure the interests of creditors, including over 100,000 fixed deposit holders of DHFL, as a delay in resolution can lead to a rise in slippages and higher non-performing assets for the HFC, which stopped lending a few months ago.

DHFL is the first non-bank lender to be referred to NCLT under new rules notified by the government on 15 November. RBI had cited governance concerns and payment defaults by DHFL as reasons for superseding the board.

According to the RBI order cited by DHFL in a regulatory filing last month, a statutory inspection of DHFL conducted by National Housing Bank with reference to its position as on 31 March, 2018 revealed serious deterioration in its financial position. In September, RBI had also superseded the board of crisis-hit Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank Ltd and appointed Jai Bhagwan Bhoria as the bank’s administrator.

While the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) was seen as the panacea for India’s stressed assets, its track record is not too impressive. Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) data showed that most admitted cases led to liquidation as a viable resolution plan could not be arrived at. As on 30 September, 23% of the admitted cases were ordered to be dissolved. Only 6%, or 156 cases, were resolved under the bankruptcy law since December 2016.

Data from IBBI showed that financial creditors were able to resolve insolvency claims of Rs.29,849.28 crore during July-September 2019. The total resolution amount in the given period was 11% less than the preceding three months, when creditors, primarily comprising banks and asset reconstruction companies, had resolved claims of Rs.33,573 crore. #casansaar (Source - PTI, LiveMint)