Financial Bids For Air India & BPCL Sales To Be Postponed By Three Months: Report

The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic is set to affect the asset evaluation of large public sector enterprises BPCL and Air India.

The financial bids for the two firms will most probably be postponed by around three months to September now, as per sources.

However, the central government is quite confident that both the concerned transactions will be rounded off in the ongoing fiscal year itself.

“The transaction advisers are in touch with bidders, who have sought extra time for putting in bids for AI. Covid has affected mobility of bidders’ representatives…site inspection is not happening,” an official was quoted in a report by the Financial Express.

Actually, the shortlisted bidders of the two companies have been provided the access to data room and the actual share purchase agreement (SPA). However, they still need to physically access the true value of the companies’ assets.

Also, the work of transaction and legal advisors for both the cases has also been impacted due to the pandemic.

The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) had earlier expected the financial bids and then the subsequent sales of the two CPSEs to be completed by July and September respectively.

The likes of Vedanta, Apollo Global Management and Think Gas had shown interest for BPCL in November 2020 whereas Tata Group amongst other suitors had put in preliminary bids for Air India in December last year.