Space Mantra, Five Other Firms Lead Race To Acquire Future Retail

In an exchange filing, debt-ridden Future Retail on Wednesday said it had received bids from six resolution applicants for its assets.

“The aforesaid submissions were opened in the meeting of the Committee of Creditors (CoC) of the corporate debtor held on May 16, 2023, in presence of the prospective resolution applicants,” it said.

According to media reports, Reliance Retail and Adani Group have not bid for Future Retail’s assets.

Reports state that the highest bid came from Space Mantra, and the five other companies that placed bids were Pinnacle Air, Palgun Tech LLC, Lehar Solutions, Goodwill Furniture, and Sarvabhishta E-waste Management.

The bids were placed in response to a request for the resolution plans dated April 14. On that day, Future Retail put up the final list of 48 bidders who had submitted expressions of interest (EoIs) to acquire Future Retail. That list included JC Flowers Asset Reconstruction, Reliance Retail Ventures, WH Smith Travel, and April Moon Retail (a joint venture between Adani Airports Holding and Flemingo Group), Jindal Power, and a host of recycling companies.

History

In March, Future Retail’s creditors invited EoIs for the company and its assets. On March 1, the company had said it had failed to get a plan for revival and that lenders would decide on further action.

On March 23, FRL’s creditors invited new EoIs whereby prospective buyers could bid for the debt-ridden firm “as a going concern or individual cluster or a combination of clusters of its assets”, as it failed to attract a resolution plan in more than four months.

In April, the National Company Law Tribunal had granted an extension of 90 days for conducting the corporate insolvency.

The CoC had provided two options in the EoI and the last date for submission was April 7.

In the first option, the Prospective Resolution Applicant (PRA) could bid for the acquisition of FRL as a whole, including its shareholding interest in subsidiaries.

Under the second option, FRL’s business would be distributed into five clusters and PRAs could bid for “any individual cluster or any combination of clusters”.