Yes Bank Takes Over Anil Ambani's HQ 'Reliance Centre' Over Unpaid Loans Of Rs 2,892 Crore

Yes Bank, which is facing its own share of financial troubles has attached several assets of former billionaire businessman Anil Ambani.

According to a notice published by Yes Bank in a newspaper, the private lender has taken over Anil Ambani¡¯s group in surburban Santacruz and two other offices in south Mumbai.

BCCL/FILE

The properties were taken over for the non-payment of a Rs 2,892-crore loan to Reliance Infrastructure.

The Santacruz office called 'Reliance Centre' situated on a 21,432-square metre plot, came under the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group after it acquired BSES two decades ago. BSES was rechristened Reliance Energy and subsequently repositioned as Reliance Infrastructure, which currently owns the property.

Since 2018 nearly all the major companies in Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) were operating out of the Santacruz office.

BCCL

In recent months as the group shrunk its operations, most of the offices were consolidated in the North Wing, and the property was listed for lease with JLL.

Yes Bank said it had sought to recover dues of Rs 2,892.44 crore from Reliance Infrastructure on May 6 and took possession of the three properties on July 22 after a failure to repay even after 60 days of the notice.

It cautioned the general public not to deal with the properties, adding that any dealing with the properties will be subject to a charge of Yes Bank for an amount of Rs 2,892 crore.

This comes at a time when Yes Bank is trying to rescue itself from the crisis that it faced earlier this year over its poor financial position.

AFP

Much of this was blamed on bad loans to corporates like the one that was given to Anil Ambani's company.

Several other troubled companies, including DHFL, Crompton Greaves, Zee Group, Vodafone and others also huge loans with Yes Bank.

Due to the high amount of non-performing assets, the lender had to be bailed out by a SBI-led consortium of lenders in March for Rs 10,000 crore.

Before the bail-out, the government and the RBI superseded the Yes Bank board and installed a new chief executive and board.

Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor was arrested in March by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with an alleged multi-crore fraud at the bank and is still behind the bars.

BCCL

On June 23, Anil Ambani had claimed that R-Infra, which has loans outstanding of Rs 6,000 crore, will be completely debt-free this fiscal year.

In 2018, the company sold its Mumbai energy business to Adani Transmission for nearly Rs 18,800 crore, which helped reduce the debt to nearly Rs 7,500 crore.