No bidders for Mallya's Kingfisher House for 5th time

Mumbai: The fifth attempt by the State Bank of India to auction Vijay Mallya's 17,000 square feet Kingfisher House in Mumbai, Kingfisher Airline's corporate office in Vile Parle turned out to be a no show as no bidders came today.

The bank had fixed a reserve price of  Rs 93.5 crore for the House.

SBI's financial arm SBI Capital had announced earlier this month that it will hold the auction on May 31. However, senior SBI officials said that the auction did not get any response.

The bank had set Monday as last day for submitting Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) of Rs 9.35 crore for participating in the auction. Not a single bidder evinced interest in the auction, SBI officials said.

An SBI official who did not want to be named said, "The fifth auction at a base reserve price of Rs 93.5 crore too did not find any takers. We had expected that after successfully auctioning Kingfisher Villa in Goa we could gain confidence in potential bidders but we will now have to see what can be done to assure auctioning of Kingfisher House in future."

Kingfisher House, owned by Kingfisher Airlines, was taken into custody by the SBI in February 2015, for non-payment of Rs 6,963 crore loan, for which, liquor baron Vijay Mallya was a guarantor.

At the fourth auction of Kingfisher House in March, SBI-led consortium had set reserve price of Rs 103.50 crore, 10 per cent lower than the third auction held in December 2016 when the reserve price was Rs 115 crore.

The reserve price for the House was fixed at Rs 150 crore in first failed auction attempt in March 2016. The reserve price was lowered to Rs 135 crore for the second auction in August.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation, had suspended Kingfisher Airlines’ operating licence in October 2012 following a strike by the airline’s employees, along with huge losses and liabilities including to the lenders.

In April 2017, a group of 17-banks led by State Bank of India sold the Kingfisher Villa for Rs 73.01 crore to Sachiin Joshi of Viiking Media & Entertainment, after having failed to auction it thrice since last year.

The plush property that situated at Condolim in north Goa was sold through a private deal between lenders and Joshi. It was sold at just Rs 1 lakh above the last fixed reserve price of Rs 73 crore.

Mallya owes over Rs 9,000 crore to bankers, taken for his defunct Kingfisher Airlines. He has been alleged to have syphoned off a good portion to his shell companies in overseas tax havens. Mallya has been declared a wilful defaulter and as he has been wanted by authorities for default in payment of loans.