Bharti Group withdraws Reliance Communications bid, citing unfair treatment

NEW DELHI: The Bharti Group has withdrawn its offer for the assets of bankrupt Reliance Communications and its subsidiaries Reliance Infratel and Reliance Telecom, citing extremely unfair treatment, and asserted that it reserves the right to bid afresh.
In a letter on Thursday addressed to Deloitte’s Anish Nanavaty, the court-appointed resolution professional for RCom, Bharti senior executive Harjeet Kohli said his company had on October 31 sought an extension of the November 11 deadline for submission of bids to December 1. The request was denied and now the last day has been postponed to accommodate another potential bidder, he said.

“We request that the sealed envelopes containing the three resolution plans submitted by us be returned in original,” Kohli wrote in the letter to Nanavaty.

ET reported on Thursday that RCom’s RP extended the bidding deadline by almost 10 days from November 11. The extension was granted on a request from Reliance Jio Infocomm, according to two bankers.

ET has reviewed the contents of Bharti’s letter to Nanavaty. Bharti declined to comment. Queries to Nanavaty and Jio’s parent Reliance Industries went unanswered. Varde Partners, one of the bidders, declined comment.

The Sunil Mittal-controlled Bharti Group and London based fund Varde Partners had submitted bids for RCom on Monday.

New Delhi-based UV Asset Reconstruction Company may join the bidding process next week, according to one banker, who also said Bharti may submit a fresh bid.

The original deadline for bids for RCom was set for September 20 and it was extended several times, people familiar with the matter said. Claims of various banks and financial institutions against RCom and the two unit are estimated at about Rs 85,000 crore.