- Saturday, April 20, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE Narendra Modi government has decided to stick to the September 15 deadline for investors to put in bids for buying Air India, the national carrier, official sources have said. This stand was in sharp contrast to the extension of the deadline for the preliminary bids by as many as five times.
Tata Group, a salt-to-software conglomerate, was among the several entities that had put in preliminary bids for buying the loss-making airline last December. Following an analysis of the preliminary bids, eligible bidders were given access to Air India’s Virtual Data Room (VDR) for due diligence and the investors’ queries were responded to following that.
In April, the government had initiated the process for inviting financial bids and made September 15 the deadline for putting in bids. According to the official source, the government will decide on the reserve price once the final date arrives. The deal is expected to be closed by the end of December.
In July, India’s minister of state for civil aviation VK Singh told the country’s parliament that financial bids for the carrier will be received by September 15.
The government is selling its entire stake in Air India which has been making losses since its merger with domestic operator Indian Airlines almost a decade-and-half ago.
The stake sale process got delayed because of the pandemic and the government had extended the deadline as many as five times to submit preliminary bids for the national carrier.
With previous attempts since 2017 failing to get any significant interest, the government has sweetened the deal by giving freedom to potential suitors to decide how much of the airline’s debt they want to take on as part of the transaction.
Earlier, the bidders were required to take over the entire Rs 60,074 crore (£5.9 billion) debt.
