Liberty House, Deccan Value top bidders for Amtek

MUMBAI: The UK-based metals group Liberty House and Deccan Value Investors, a US-registered hedge fund have emerged as top contenders for auto component maker Amtek Auto which is in bankruptcy courts awaiting resolution, said two senior officials familiar.

“The company has received binding bids from the two entities about 10-12 days ago. But both the applicants did not submit bid bond guarantee,” said one of the officials cited above. “Therefore they were given additional time till Jan 9 to submit the resolution plan with bid bond guarantee.”

A committee of creditors will meet next week to evaluate the two bids. A resolution plan for a bankruptcy company would not be considered by lenders if the applicant does not provide bid bond guarantee which is a letter of comfort from a bank or a bank guarantee that indicates that the bidder has either the cash balance to complete the transaction or the banks would step in. Amtek Auto faces claims of Rs 12,722 crore from financial creditors and Rs 223 crore from operational creditors. Corporation Bank had referred Amtek Auto to NCLT. The Resolution Professional in charge did not respond to an email sent by ET.


Now both bidders have submitted the bid bond, but it is not clear which of the banks are backing the bidders, said those people. “UK based Liberty House submitted a bid bond guarantee two days ago while US based hedge fund Deccan Value Investors had provided the same a week ago,” said one of the person quoted above. While the liquidation value is close to 33% of the outstanding loans, the bids could be higher than that since enterprise value and future cash flows could be high given that it is one of the top suppliers to companies such as Maruti Suzuki, the biggest car maker, and Tata Motors the top truck maker.