Yes Bank must decide if it is Dish TV investor or a lender: Subhash Chandra
Breaking his silence over the Essel groupтАЩs dispute with YES Bank, group patriarch Subhash Chandra said the bank should decide its role as a shareholder of Dish TV India or a lender so that the group can accordingly take steps to settle the pending issues with it.
Chandra said his familyтАЩs settlement offer was in YES BankтАЩs court, but it had not taken any steps yet to take the matter forward.
тАЬWe are willing to give control of Dish TV to YES Bank if the bank is interested in running its day-to-day operations as a shareholder. But if itтАЩs a lender, then we are ready to negotiate to settle the account,тАЭ he told Business Standard in an interview.
After YES Bank seized the Chandra familyтАЩs pledged shares after a default, the familyтАЩs stake in Dish fell to 6 per cent.
The bank now owns a 25.63 per cent stake, worth Rs 713 crore as of Tuesday, in the satellite TV broadcaster.
The bank claims that it extended loans of Rs 5,270 crore to 10 different Essel group entities between 2015 and 2018. Chandra, however, says the promoter entities of Essel owe Rs 4,200 crore to the bank, and that the lender has bunched several loans to other group companies, taking the total amount to Rs 5,270 crore.
тАЬWe have already paid back 91 per cent of our lenders, and we are ready to settle with YES Bank by paying back more than what the bankтАЩs stake in Dish TV is worth,тАЭ Chandra said. тАЬOur offer will be far better than other accounts where the bank has settled with a larger haircut.тАЭ Haircut is the amount banks forego to settle a default account.
In December, the shareholders of Dish TV voted to remove the promoter-nominated director on the companyтАЩs board. They also voted against the annual accounts of the company for the year ended March 2021.
