Addressing shareholders of Reliance Power at the company’s 26th AGM, Anil Ambani tried to strike an optimistic note by saying that the resolution of Reliance Communication and Reliance Infratel's debt will help repay outstanding loans that have been a pain point for the company.
The embattled business tycoon said that the loan taken from a consortium of three Chinese Banks- CDB, ICBC and C-EXIM - as well as the loan from State Bank of India was a corporate loan and not for personal borrowing. The former, he said, was taken by Reliance Communication during the normal course of business in 2012. The latter was availed again by Reliance Communications and Reliance Infratel in 2016 to repay the debts of Chinese and certain other Indian Banks, he added.
Ambani asserted that there was no personal guarantee involved in the loan from Chinese banks and he had only signed a power of attorney limited to executing a non-binding letter of comfort. This defence, he said, has been shut out by the UK courts on his inability to personally deposit a sum of $100 million.
The case relates to the consortium comprising of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Development Bank and Exim Bank of China dragging Anil Ambani to court in the UK to recover the $925 million loan to Reliance Communication.
Ambani put up a similar defence with respect to the loan taken from SBI, saying that the loan does not relate to any personal borrowing.
However, he went on to say that upon the resolution of Reliance Communication and Reliance Infratel’s debt as per their resolution plans filed before NCLT, a significant proportion, if not the whole, of the said debt will stand discharged and the matter will be satisfactorily resolved.
Towards the end of the AGM, Ambani reassured all shareowners that none of the potential liabilities on other group companies would have any bearing on the operations of the Reliance Power or Reliance Infrastructure.
First Published: Jun 23, 2020 9:14 PM IST
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