Loan Default: Piramal Enterprises 'refutes baseless rumours' by realty players

Piramal Enterprises (PEL) Sunday said it "strongly refutes baseless rumours" regarding loan defaults by real estate developers to its lending arms Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Ltd.

Further, the company said it "would categorically like to state that we have an extremely robust loan processing and recovery process including risk management and asset monitoring system."

Developers like Lodha, Omkar, Vatika and Embassy referred to in the rumours are part of the lending portfolio but have never defaulted on any interest or repayment obligation to PEL/PCHFL, it said said.

"Among others the rumours relate to loan defaults to PEL/Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Limited (PCHFL) by real estate developers such as Lodha, Omkar, Vatika, Embassy, Radius, Nahar, Aristo, Supertech etc," it said in a statement.

PEL said it "strongly refutes all baseless rumours" of any sort/form that have been floating around with respect to its real estate loan portfolio companies.

Additionally, contrary to rumours, PCHFL has not extended any loan to developers like Aristo, Nahar, Supertech, Radius and Amrapali. Therefore, there is no question of any default on loan repayments by these developers, it added.

The company said it would share a lot more granular details on the health of its lending portfolio and liquidity status at the earning call post its quarterly results announcement on October 25.

The National Housing Board (NHB) carries out an annual inspection of all housing finance companies. PCHFL received the housing finance licence in end August, 2017 and accordingly, the NHB has now initiated their annual inspection of PCHFL and this is purely routine and procedural in nature, it stated further.

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PCHFL is a wholly owned subsidiary of Piramal Enterprises which is engaged in providing various financing solutions in the real estate sector such as early stage private equity, structured debt, senior secured debt, construction finance, flexi lease rental discounting and housing finance.

The housing finance companies and the non-banking financial companies have been facing the heat post the IL&FS crisis post a series of loan defaults by the latter nearly a month ago.