Kingfisher house finds no bidder in auction

The auction of Kingfisher House, which once housed the headquarters of Vijay Mallya’s defunct airline Kingfisher Airlines, proved to be a flop show as no bids were received.

Officials involved in the bid said that fear of litigation and the high reserve price that was put on the property — Rs 150 crores — was the likely reason for people staying away from the bidding.

 The auction of the property, with a built-up area of over 17,000 sq ft in Vile Parle area near domestic airport here, started at11:30am and ended in about an hour with no success.

 “We received no bids. Litigation fear and the high reserved price is the likely reason for this,” an official involved with the auction conducted by SBI Caps for a consortium of banks led by public sector lender State Bank of India said. The 17-member bank consortium, which had given loans to Kingfisher Airlines, will soon have a review meeting and may discuss lowering the reserve price as well, sources said.

The online auction was held by SBICAPS Trustee, a subsidiary of SBI Caps. Lenders had taken over Kingfisher House in February last year in a bid to recover part of their dues which amount to over Rs 9,000. The auction was conducted under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act (Sarfaesi), 2002.

In a related development, Mallya who was asked to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) today, sought more time and has told the ED that he will appear in April.