Jaiprakash assets draw interest from major conglomerates and investors

Several Companies cutting across Indian conglomerates, fund houses and asset reconstruction companies have shown initial interest in bidding for Jaiprakash Associates’ assets. Prominent names include Naveen Jindal-promoted Jindal Power, Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta, Puneet Dalmia’s Dalmia Bharat and Gautam Adani’s Adani Enterprises. A couple of PE funds and some asset reconstruction companies have placed EoIs too, sources told businessline.

Welspun Group is also among the probables.

The last date of submitting EoIs was March 25, after which the bidding process will commence.

Asset valuation

Most companies are estimating Jaiprakash’s value in the ₹10,000-14,000 crore range, on the condition that its existing assets are considered as a single business unit (one bid across its multiple businesses).

Dalmia Bharat, Vedanta, Welspun and Jindal Power are yet to respond to queries from businessline.

The National Company Law Tribunal has recently ruled that Jaiprakash must be sold as a single entity. So, EoIs placed for individual business clusters have been withdrawn.

One of India’s largest corporate insolvency cases, Jaiprakash Associates, a key entity within the Jaypee Group, has diverse business interests, including real estate, cement manufacturing, hospitality, and engineering & construction. The conglomerate has outstanding dues of over ₹57,000 crore. A consortium of lenders, led by SBI, transferred these dues to National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL), commonly known as India’s Bad Bank, for ₹12,700 crore.

“These are only EoIs. So not all of them will go for bidding once the process begins. Some of these are exploratory too, as not all conglomerates have the same adjacencies as Jaiprakash,” one of the interested parties told businessline.

The company’s RP was not available for comments.

Real estate contributed nearly 14 per cent of Jaiprakash’s turnover in FY 24, whereas some of its lucrative businesses include cement – mostly non-operational – and infrastructure, apart from the profitable hospitality venture. Currently, the company has four cement plants, thermal power plants and a few leased limestone mines located in Madhya Pradesh.

“Ideally, the valuation should be significantly higher than the ₹12,700 crore range, maybe a couple of thousand crores plus or minus,” said one of the companies that has placed an EoI.