NEW DELHI: India’s second largest listed real estate developer Unitech on Monday claimed that its debt obligation up to March ’09 has reduced from Rs 2,500 crore to Rs 600 crore on account of repayment and roll over of loans. Of the Rs 600 crore loan, which the company is now expected to pay back by March, 60% is due to banks and rest to mutual funds. The company claimed it paid back close to Rs 950 crore and the rest was rescheduled to a later date.

Unitech had a total debt of Rs 8,300 crore on its balance sheet as of September, of which Rs 2,500 was supposed to be repaid by March 2009. Unitech MD Sanjay Chandra said over Rs 1,000 crore loan has been restructured so far, but didn’t give the exact figure.

Some of the loans that have been rescheduled include those which were due after March. Without clarifying how much Unitech still owed its lenders following the repayment and restructuring of loans Mr Chandra said, “We don’t have substantial repayment obligation now. Nothing that worries us.”

Unitech had raised Rs 900 crore at 19% interest rate from 8-9 mutual fund houses, including Reliance and Kotak, in November 2008. This was due for repayment on Monday. The company said it paid back a ‘substantial’ amount on Saturday, while the rest was rolled over.

“We are trying to replace our short-term mutual fund debt by long-term bank loans,” said Mr Chandra, adding that he expected to replace Rs 2,500-crore short-term loans by long-term loans in the next two months. He said he has been able to raise fresh debt, mainly to retire old ones, but refused to give the amount of fresh debt raised.

Unitech in a hurriedly concluded EGM on Monday also obtained approval of shareholders to raise Rs 5,000 crore through fresh issue of equity or convertible instruments. “The way restructuring is happening and the pace at which it is happening, we don’t need fresh capital. But if there is a window of opportunity, we will go for it,” said Mr Chandra. He declined to comment on the shares promoters have pledged with other financial institutions.

On the issue of share buy-back of AIM-listed Unitech Corporate Park(UCP), Mr Chandra said a decision will be taken by the UCP board next week in Dubai. UCP holds real estate projects being executed by Unitech in India. Unitech’s wholly owned subsidiary Nectrus Ltd will buy back shares using management fee it gets from UCP once the board gives a green signal.

source: Economictimes

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