Process of recovery of dues from Kingfisher on: SBI chief

Bangalore: State Bank of India chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya said on Saturday that the process of recovery of dues from Vijay Mallya-promoted Kingfisher Airlines Ltd is going on, “but there are legal challenges”.

“Kingfisher is currently a non-operative account and we don’t want to discuss individual accounts. Whatever are the steps necessary for recovery, they are going on, but there are some steps that will take time because there is a legal system to negotiate with, and obviously there are legal challenges. So we are looking at that,” she told reporters here.

SBI leads a 17-member consortium of lenders that is trying to recover dues running into more than Rs.7,500 crore in principal alone from Kingfisher Airlines. SBI has the maximum exposure of Rs.1,600 crore to the airline, which has been grounded since October 2012.

Asked how much the bank has recovered from the sale of Kingfisher Airlines’ shares, she said, “Nothing much. I think the recovery is in the range of Rs.350-400 crore.” Asked about recovering the balance, she said, “I have fully provided from our profits.” 

 

 SBI Capital Markets Ltd has been tasked by the consortium of lenders to recover their dues.

Punjab National Bank and IDBI Bank each have an exposure of Rs.800 crore each to Kingfisher.

On SBI’s efforts to merge some of its subsidiaries, Bhattacharya said the bank is not looking into it at the moment and would see how things develop after the elections. “At this point of time, we are not really looking into it. We will see how things go once the new government is formed and we want to understand what they would like us to do,” she said. PTI

 

 

MUNTAZIR ALAM

PGDM 2ND SEM

IIMT COLLEGE OF MANAGEMENT

 

SOURCE:MINT