Tycoon Mistry’s Firm Gets Investor Assurance To Defer Debt

India's Shapoorji Pallonji Group has gained assurance from global private credit lenders to defer partial repayment on a 143 billion rupees ($1.7 billion) bond by its unit, according to a top company official.

Goswami Infratech Pvt.'s 18 billion rupees of payment due Sept. 30 this year will be deferred to December 2025, Venkatesh Gopalkrishnan, director of group promoter's office at Shapoorji Pallonji & Co., said by phone. The firm already repaid 75 billion rupees in the last two months using proceeds of recent asset and share sales, he added.

The company, controlled by billionaire Shapoor Mistry, owns and develops real estate properties, and the move will potentially help it expand. It had raised the funds through India's biggest ever low-grade rupee bond in June last year, a rare offering in a market dominated by corporate debt with top credit ratings.

Holders of the deal that offered a juicy 18.75% yield include Cerberus Capital Management LP, Varde Partners LP and Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP.

Investors will continue to earn interest on the remaining amount and the company is in the process of formally taking their consent, Gopalkrishnan said. 

The company was earlier seeking time to pay the 18 billion rupees to creditors and was in talks with Deutsche Bank AG to raise the money, Bloomberg News reported in September.

Deutsche Bank had even underwritten a facility for this repayment but the company did not avail it as it received “comfort from existing lenders” Gopalkrishnan said.

A sale of two port companies along with its engineering and construction unit Afcons Infrastructure Ltd.'s 54.3 billion rupees initial public offering helped it make partial repayment.