DHFL resolution case: Supreme Court to hear Piramal Group's appeal against NCLAT on Dec 5

The Supreme Court will hear Piramal Group's appeal against National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) order on December 5. NCLAT had held that Piramal claiming rights over all future recoveries from bad debts of Rs 40,000 was illegal. Piramal had reached out to NCLAT and sought to change the contours of a resolution plan that was approved by Committee of Creditors (COC).

Non-convertible debenture (NCD) holders are, meanwhile, opposing the flow of all future recoveries from Rs 40,000 crore of bad debts to Piramal.

Piramal was the successful resolution applicant, where value of Re 1 was assigned to bad debt of Rs 40,000 crore.

In another development, Piramal Enterprises, the financial services arm of the reported a net loss of Rs 1,536 crore in the second quarter of the current financial year.

The quarterly report includes the numbers of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL) which it had acquired in September 2021 through the insolvency process.

Piramal Enterprises said the numbers are not comparable as this is the first time that the company, whose credit business was 90 percent dominated by wholesale lending earlier, is reporting the earnings as a Reserve Bank-regulated non-banking lender, and also after the merger of DHFL.

Net interest income rose 34 percent to Rs 934 crore and other income rose over 130 percent to Rs 63 crore, taking total income 37 per cent higher to Rs 997 crore.

Yesh Nadkarni, chief executive, wholesale lending, at Piramal Capital, said the total AUM rose 35 per cent to Rs 63,780 crore, led by 12 percent jump in retail loans to Rs 24,872 crore, while wholesale book declined by 13 percent during the quarter to Rs 38,908 crore, helping the firm close the quarter with a revenue growth of 37 per cent at Rs 997 crore and increasing the share of the retail book to 43 per cent of the total book.

Higher revenue growth has been primarily on account of DHFL acquisition as well as healthy growth in retail lending business, Sridharan said, adding the target is to take the retail book to 60 per cent over the next few years.

Sridharan said the company shuttered 22 DHFL branches but opened 64 new ones taking the total to 345 branches, and reiterated the commitment to have around 600-700 branches over the next few years.