One of the well-known telecom companies, Aircel will file for bankruptcy shortly at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). The company has been trying to negotiate deals with the other lenders since September but has failed to get a way out of its Rs. 15,500 Crore debt. According to sources, there is no cash to run the business and no visibility to free up any more of it. The company will also stop paying salary to its employees by the end of the week. State Bank of India, the head of the group of lenders also did not respond to queries. The bank can also not restructure Aircel anymore because it has not made any payments since September. The process of nominating members to a new board is taking place currently and it is being estimated that the application to NCLT will be made in a few days.
The lenders will be meeting on Tuesday in order to decide about the appointments and the future course of action to be taken by the company. The company is generating revenue of Rs. 400 Crore on a monthly basis out of which Rs. 100 Crore will be accounted for by the termination charges and Rs. 280 Crore is kept aside for the vendors and network uptime. The rest of the amount is being kept for interest payments, taxes and license fees. Aircel has stopped services in its six circles so as to focus on the better-performing ones. Aircel will be the fourth company which will stop its services after services were launched by Reliance Jio Infocomm in September 2016. Bankers were confident about getting their money back from Aircel because of getting support from its Malaysian parent.
The submission of a recent document in the court showed that letters of comfort were issued by Maxis to the bankers which would meet situations wherein there are any shortfalls up to Rs. 500 Crore and also pays license fees for circles to the tune of another Rs. 500 Crore in case needed.