future retail: Future Retail moves Supreme Court on lenders’ insolvency notice – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Facing heat from banks for recovery of outstanding dues, Future Retail on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court seeking quashing of lenders’ letters threatening initiation of insolvency proceedings by citing it’s still alive, but mired in cross-country litigations initiated by Amazon.
Informing the court about its high value assets — 1,209 stores in 391 cities across all states — Future Retail said it has an outstanding of Rs 5,000 crore payable to around 26 banks and financial institutions (FIs), which had agreed for restructuring of its assets through the deal with Reliance Retail.

It said infusion of Rs 25,000 crore by Reliance Retail would not only save the wide-spread valuable assets of Future Retail from being sold off cheaply by lenders through bankruptcy proceedings, but also would fully satisfy the outstandingamounts due to banks and FIs, in addition to saving the jobs of nearly 25,000 employees working in these stores. On January 11, the SC had reserved orders on future course of the multi-layered litigations between Biyani group’s Future Coupons and Future Retail.
With complications galore in the high-stake dispute — orders of Emergency Arbitrator of Singapore restraining Future Retail from going ahead with the sale to Reliance, the Competition Commission of India keeping in abeyance its earlier permission for Amazon’s investment in Future Coupons — a bench headed by CJI N V Ramana had heard arguments from all sides.
In its fresh writ petition, Future Retail told the SC that since the promising deal (with Reliance) has been stalled because of events beyond its control (Amazon invoking arbitration in which Future Retail is a non-signatory party), it had not been able to monetise its small-format stores and other assets.