New Delhi: Tata group is expected to take over Air India this week with senior officers indicating that the closing balance sheet would be finalised in next few days.
A board meeting is likely to be scheduled on January 27-28 to accord necessary approvals. Thereafter, the current members of the board would resign. Signalling that disinvestment process would be completed in the next few days, Air India’s Director ( Finance) Vinod Hejmadi wrote to some of the executives that closing balance sheet of the airline has to be provided to Tatas by the end of the day today.
“The disinvestment of Air india is now decided to be on the 27th January, 2022. The closing balance sheet as on 20th January has to be provided today 24th January so that it can be reviewed by Tatas and any changes can be effected on Wednesday,” he wrote.
Tata Group wholly-owned subsidiary had won the bid to acquire Air India in a long-running disinvestment process which eventually saw only two bidders placing their financial bids.
The Tata group company quoted an enterprise value of Rs 18,000 crore to acquire Air India along with its subsidiary Air India Express and ground-handling joint venture AISATS. After issuing the letter of intent (LoI), the government had in October signed the Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) with Tata group for selling its entire stake in the airline.
In his message to senior executives, Hejmadi sought their co-operation to complete the disinvestment process.
“The next three days will be hectic for our department and I request all of you to give your best in these last three four days before we get divested. We may have to work late in the night to complete the task given to us. I seek the cooperation of one and all,” the airline’s Director (Finance) said.
