ULTRATECH GETS CCI NOD TO BUY BINANI CEMENT ASSETS
UltraTech Cement Ltd on Wednesday said it had received clearance from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for its proposed acquisition of the assets of Binani Cement Ltd, while claiming that its bid was declared the second-highest because the resolution professional was apprehensive about the AV Birla Group firm’s ability to secure the clearance.
“A lot of apprehensions were raised by the resolution professional about Ultratech obtaining CCI clearance,” the company said in its statement. “Ultratech was rated the H2 (second highest) bidder instead of H1 for this reason. The CCI clearance validates Ultratech’s contention that it was wrongly and unjustifiably rated H2 instead of H1.”
Dalmia Bharat Ltd, which was on February 27 declared the highest bidder by the committee of creditors of Binani Cement, also issued a statement saying that the evaluation criteria for bids were “fair and made known to all bidders” in advance.
“We state emphatically that the likelihood of obtaining the CCI approval was not at all a criterion in bid evaluation,” a statement by Dalmia Bharat quoted its group chief executive officer Mahendra Singhi as saying.
Resolution professional Vijaykumar V Iyer was not immediately available for comment.
He did not reply to text messages till the time of going to press.
The administrator has already filed a resolution plan for the approval of the Kolkata bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) with Dalmia Bharat as the top bidder, amid opposition from UltraTech and Binani Industries Ltd, the holding company of the cement maker.
The two companies announced on March 19 that an agreement had been concluded under which Binani Industries would sell its 98.43% stake in Binani Cement to UltraTech for ₹7,266 crore.