More than 18 years after lenders to Daewoo Motors India recalled their loans and moved court to take charge of the company’s assets, a debt recovery tribunal (DRT) has cleared the sale of the carmaker’s land assets for at least Rs380 crore.
The lenders included ICICI Bank, Exim Bank, State Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, IDBI Bank and Canara Bank. They had sold their exposures between 2005 and 2007 to Asset Reconstruction Company (India) Ltd and the Stressed Assets Stabilisation Fund for recovery of dues. Two people aware of the development said while this will not be the first time the assets of Daewoo Motors India will go on sale, any recovery will cheer lenders who are expecting an overall rise in bad loans after the end of a moratorium at August-end.
Daewoo Motors India had an estimated debt of more than Rs3,500 crore when ICICI Bank took it to the debt recovery tribunal in 2002. A process to sell the land assets was last initiated in 2019.
“The asset will go under the hammer on September 7 and we are hoping that after almost two decades, there will be some fruitful recovery,” said one of the two people cited above.
