Binani Cement creditors pick Dalmia Bharat

The riveting ownership race for Binani Cement is set for a dramatic denouement, with creditors late Wednesday voting in favour of a Dalmia Bharat-led offer just hours after UltraTech told the insolvency court that it would pay about Rs 700 crore more for the debt-laden company. “At the end of the marathon meeting, 99.5 per cent of the creditors in value voted in favour of the Dalmia Bharat–Bain–Piramal consortium,” an official close to the development told ET. The only dissenting creditor was the Hong Kong office of State Bank of India, said another source. “The bid amount is not revised. There is no change in the resolution plan or the bid made by the Dalmia team,” said one of the two executives cited above. As lenders to the debt-stricken building materials company got into a huddle in Mumbai at the invitation of the resolution professional, the country’s biggest manufacturer of the commodity UltraTech approached the dedicated bankruptcy court 2,000 km away in Kolkata to submit a revised bid for Binani that gives the New Delhi-based Dalmia a northern beachhead in India’s highly regionalised cement market. The creditors’ vote in Dalmia’s favour would not deter UltraTech from contesting the lenders’ decision and continue the race to pouch Binani Cement, senior officials said. “We have filed the revised bid with NCLT,” CFO of UltraTech Atul Daga told media . The Aditya Birla group-owned cement company had last week increased its offer by Rs 700 crore in a last bid to acquire the debt-stricken asset.