Public sector bank (PSB) major, Punjab National Bank(PNB) on Thursday decided to sell its entire stake in Asset Reconstruction Company (India) (ARCIL) at an agreed price. PNB currently holds a 10.01% stake in ARCIL. The bank plans to divest its stake in the ARC by December 2022-end. On the completion of divestment, PNB will cease to be a sponsor/shareholder in ARCIL as the shareholding will be NIL after the stake sale. The transaction will be carried in cash. The bank will divest about 3,25,06,486 equity shares or 10.01% shareholding in ARCIL.

The Supreme Court has set aside the ruling of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) rejecting Asset Reconstruction Co (India) Ltd’s claim in Tulip Star Hotels’ insolvency case. The appellate tribunal had accepted the hotel operator’s claim that the ARC filed its case against the company under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) after the limitation period of three years from the date of declaring the asset as non-performing.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside a judgement delivered by a Full Bench of the Gujarat High Court which had held that stamp duty has to be independently paid for a Power of Attorney executed along with a deed assigning debt, even if stamp duty has been paid on the assignment deed. In this case, the Oriental Bank of Commerce had assigned a debt to an Asset Reconstruction Company(ARC) under Section 3 of the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002 (SARFAESI Act). Along with the assignment deed, the Bank had executed an irrevocable Power of Attorney (PoA) in favour of the company, empowering the assignee, as the agent of the Bank, to sell any immovable property.

Punjab & Sind Bank has declared outstanding dues of around ₹1,234 Crore to the Srei group firms – Srei Infrastructure Finance and Srei Equipment Finance -as fraud and reported it to Reserve Bank of India. In a stock market notification on Tuesday, the bank said the NPA accounts, SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd (SIFL) with outstanding dues of ₹510 Crore and SREI Equipment Finance Ltd (SEFL) with outstanding dues of ₹724 Crore, have been declared as fraud. The accounts have been fully provided for as per prescribed prudential norms, it said. According to sources in Srei, the decision taken by the bank is rather “unfortunate” particularly when the KPMG report, on which the decision has seemingly been based, is still sub-judice.

Almost all the big names, in the provisional list of eligible prospective resolution applicants for the Srei group companies, have qualified. As many as 14 entities were in the provisional list of eligible resolution applicants. Big corporates including Vedanta and Jindal Power, and asset reconstruction companies such as Assets Care and Reconstruction Enterprise, JM Financial Asset Reconstruction Company and Asset Reconstruction Company (India) (Arcil) were some of the names that featured in the provisional list. The administrator for the two Srei group companies — Srei Infrastructure Finance and Srei Equipment Finance — had on February 25 published an invitation to Expressions of Interest (EOI) and received 14 EOls.