Shapoorji Pallonji’s debt repayment plan includes Rs 4,000 crore loan from HDFC

New Delhi: In order to repay the debt of its financiers with the banking sector, Shapoorji Pallonji and Co. (SPCPL) raised around Rs 4,000 crore in loans this month from HDFC. The conglomerate had informed its lenders last month that their dues would be settled by the last week of March.

To raise Rs 4,000 crore, SPCPL will pledge shares of Sterling Investment Company with HDFC, Economic Times quoted two people in the know. The company holds 9.19% of the shares of Son of Tatathe main holding company of the Tata Group.

For the uninitiated, the SP group and the Tata group have not been on good terms since the ousting in October 2016 of Cyrus Mistry as chairman of Tata Sons. The two companies differ on their views on the pledge of Tata Sons shares. The Tatas have even turned to the Supreme Court over the matter, opposing an earlier decision by SP Group to pledge shares of Tata Sons with Brookfield Asset Management to generate Rs 3,750 crore.

SPCPL prepaid its loan in order to be protected from the label of defaulter. According to a person quoted above, the company had to reduce its debt by March, according to the terms of the OTR, in order to be able to meet certain financial covenants relating to the debt ratio.

It can be noted that the duration of the OTR provided for a moratorium of 2 years and that the payment of the principal of the loan was to start from September 2022. as a defaulter. To avoid this, he prepaid the entire loan,” the person said.

Another attempt to reduce the group’s debt was made in the last calendar year when SP Group promoted Evangelos Ventures raised Rs 9,530 crore from affiliates of private equity funds Ares SSG Capital and Farallon Capital .