Founder Chairman of troubled airline operator Jet Airways, Naresh Goyal, via a letter directed to its strategic partner Etihad Airway’s CEO Tony Douglas, explained Jet’s very precarious financial position, including the fact that it has 50 aircrafts of its fleet grounded, due to non-payment of dues to lessors and has requested an urgent funding of ₹ 750 crore from the Abu Dhabi headquartered airline.
Another separate development had Jet Airways, on March 11th default on repayment on a foreign loan due to shortage of capital. In addition to this, salaries of many employees and dues to various vendors have been delayed.
Jet Airways has a debt burden of more than ₹ 8,000 crores, and with a repayment of ₹ 1,700 crore due by March end, Naresh Goyal is in the midst of negotiating a resolution plan.
It is learnt that under the SBI led bank-resolution plan to rescue Jet, a total fund infusion of at least ₹ 4,200 crore would be seen.
A new investor would inject between ₹ 1,600 to 1,900 crore for a stake around 20% in the airline and the Goyal group’s stake in Jet Airways would fall from 51% to a mere 17.1%. The consortium of lenders led by SBI that has converted its debt into equity, will pump in an additional ₹ 1,000 crores to take its shareholding between 29.5 to 30%. Etihad will also infuse between ₹ 1,600 to 1,900 crore to raise its shareholding to 24.9%.
Goyal will also immediately step down as chairman of the company once he ceases to be majority shareholder, however, he may be eligible to appoint two nominees to the 12 member strong board. In addition, his son, Nivaan Goyal, could be considered for an executive post on the board. The exact details will be known once the deal is finalised.
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