Reliance Communications has been hit with a fresh roadblock to its attempt to sell its tower and fiber assets to Reliance Jio Infocomm.
India’s National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has withdrawn aninterim order that had cleared RCom to proceed with the asset sale.
RCom has instead been instructed to wait until the outcome of an NCLAT ruling to be released next Wednesday.
The NCLAT’s about face was prompted by a Supreme Court decision staying the interim order, which was in response to a petition to India’s apex court from HSBC Daisy Investments, which represents a group of investors holding nearly 5% of RCom.
RCom is still free to proceed with the sale of its spectrum, real estate and media convergence node assets as part of its 250 billion rupee ($3.02 billion) asset fire sale.
The operator is planning to exit the wireless market and monetize other assets in order to avoid insolvency as a result of mounting debt. The zero writedown debt restructuring program is expected to reduce RCom’s residual net debt by around 390 billion rupees ($5.89 billion).
