Essar Steel’s parent Essar Global repays Rs 6,300 crore loans to ICICI, Axis, Stan Chart banks

Essar Global, the holding company of Essar Group, on Monday said that it has paid back last tranche of Rs 12,000 crore to its Indian and foreign lenders. Essar Global has now repaid Rs 1.37 lakh crore or 80 per cent of group debt in 2 years, the company said in a statement. The latest repayment is in addition to Rs 30,000 crore made in August 2017 from the proceeds arising out of the sale of Essar Oil to Russia’s Rosneft, the company said.

ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and Standard Chartered Bank have now been repaid nearly Rs 6,300 crore to by Essar Global. This repays entire Rs 31,500 crore of loans availed from these banks between 2008-14, the company said. The only remaining lender to Essar Global is Russia’s VTB, it added.

The proceeds of Rs 6,000 crore and Rs 24,000 crore arising out of sale of Global Fund’s BPO arm Aegis respectively have also been used to reduce group’s debt.

“A further Rs 45,000 crore of group debt relating to Essar Steel India is being addressed through the ongoing insolvency and bankruptcy process,” company said. “In this regard, lenders have already received an offer from ArcelorMittal offering them cash repayment of Rs 42,000 crore”, it added.

A subsidiary of Essar Global has separately offered Rs 54,389 crore to fully pay all outstanding of lenders and operational creditors.

In addition, Essar has paid Rs 3,955 crore to minority shareholders of Essar Oil and Rs 1,400 crore to minority shareholders of Essar Ports.

“Over the past two years, we committed ourselves to a massive deleveraging programme and have repaid more than Rs 1,37,000 crore to our lenders, most of which will go to the Indian bankers and lenders. The premium valuations being placed on various assets that have been sold by Essar are a testament to the quality of these assets and businesses we have built over the years,” it said.

Essar Steel