My history is not patchy and poor, says US-based NRI who has bid for Air India
Laxmi Prasad, chairman at Interups Inc, who has submitted his bids for national carrier Air India, has taken to social media after an Indian Express report profile on Prasad claims that “A scrutiny of the deals the company claims to be ‘pursuing’ in India, however, shows a patchy, if not a poor, record.”
Prasad and his firm Interups Inc, according to the Indian Express report, have been trying to bidding for many Indian companies, some undergoing insolvency proceedings, have all fallen through without much success.
Refuting the claims of the Indian Express report, Prasad says in his LinkedIn postings that his ‘history is not a patchy and poor’ and that he strongly believes in his efforts.
Dismissing the newspaper report which cast aspersion to seriousness of his bids to acquire many companie sin India including his latest bid for Air India, Prasad explains the pain he took for each of his efforts.
On his Air India bid, he says they met Civil Aviation officials and requested them to treat NRI investment as 100% domestic. He said that he is also working hard to fetch the best valuation for the airline as it is an asset to thousands of employees who serve the airline and the millions of public travel by it.
“I am a David fighting the Goliath and I am certain to receive these challenges across but I have a very strong track record of survival,” he says.
Tata group is said to be way ahead in the race to acquire Air India.
On his efforts to acquire Air Asia, Prasad says he personally mailed Chandra (Tata group chairman N Chandrasekaran) & Ratan ji (Ratan Tata) asking them to accept his offer to buy Air Asia. “But I read that Tatas are investing in Air Asia and the latter refused us…anyone can guess why, and we knew it will,” he says alluding at the fact that once Air Asia refused his offer he knew that Tatas would take control of Air Asia.
On his bid to acquire Asian Color Coated Ispat Limited, which was ultimately acquired by JSW Steel through the insolvency process, Prasad says that they entered (the bidding process) late (as the asset was not noticed by them earlier) and they requested the NCLT if they could be considered. However, NCLT did not allow it to submit its bid, and Prasad has appealed against the NCLT order.
Explaining his failure to acquire two residential towers of Phoenix Kessaku project in Bengaluru, Prasad said that they found Kessaku as a readily presentable asset for sponsoring a REIT. He says they intended to have an AIF to hold the asset, but the fact that an existing AIF cannot serve the purpose as the assets would be mingled with other assets, and a new AIF would take at least 60 -90 days registration, they could not go through with that deal.
The Indian Express has quoted sources saying that “while Interups signed the term sheet with Phoenix Mills to acquire the two towers, there was no movement on the due diligence and the timelines to carry CA, insurance agent, now Air India bidder; Palaypu (Laxmi Prasad) has little to show in closing deals the same were not met. Following this, Phoenix Mills terminated the agreement in September.”
Interups Inc, according to its website, is a publicly listed company engaged in the business of identifying and investing into business opportunities or transactions either directly or on behalf of its stakeholders, affiliates, associate concerns and clients.
Interups, says the website, specializes in crafting turnkey solutions involving complex financial and strategic challenges for a diverse set of businesses around the world, including firms, corporations, governments, institutions, partnerships and individuals.
It also assists emerging and mature but distress clients in their capital, business structuring needs and acquire or invest into them by reviewing, analyzing and modeling various structural alternatives and assisting in their financial and management needs towards growth and turnaround.
