Mumbai: The Reserve Bank has revoked the deposit-taking status of Dewan Housing Finance (DHFL), the first financial services firm to go for bankruptcy proceedings, and has reclassified it as a non-deposit taking housing finance company, before approving the Piramal group's bid to take over it towards the end of the resolution process.
The revelation comes in the June 7 NCLT Mumbai order that has approved the Rs 35,250-crore bid for the once second largest mortage lender by Piramal Capital & Housing Finance, forcing over 65 per cent haircut on the creditors and just Re 1 to its NCD holders to whom it owes more than Rs 45,000-crore.
On the 14th page of the 86-page NCLT order by HP Chaturvedi and Ravikumar Duraisamy, it says DHFL no longer is a deposit taking NBFC but a non-deposit taking one.
The changes were made in February 2021, after the RBI gave a non-objection to the January 25, 2021 application by R Subramaniakumar, the DHFL administrator, citing Rule 5 of its FSP (financial services providers) Rules.
"Pursuant to the FSP Rules, the RBI communicated its 'no objection' on February 16, 2021 for change in control/ownership/management in DHFL in terms of Rule 5(d)(iii) of the FSP Rules and also in terms of para 3 of NHB circular housing finance companies -- approval of acquisition or transfer of control Directions, 2016, subject to (inter alia) the condition that the deposit-taking status of DHFL will be revoked and merged entity of DHFL and Piramal Capital shall function as a non-deposit taking housing finance company," says the NCLT order.
In the concluding part of the order, the bench reiterates that the resolution is subject to the fact that RBI's non-objection, which is based on the condition that "the status of the corporate debtor (DHFL) is changed from a deposit-taking housing finance company to a non-deposit-taking housing finance company . It can be noted that DHFL became the first financial services entity to be referred to the NCLT for bankruptcy, when the RBI on November 20, 2019 superseded the DHFL board and appointed Subramaniakumar as its administrator.