Govt issues Letter of Intent to Tatas for sale of Air India

New Delhi, October 11

The government on Monday issued a letter of intent (LoI) confirming the sale of its 100% stake in loss-making Air India to Tata Group for Rs 18,000 crore, a senior official said.

Last week, the government had accepted an offer by Talace Pvt Ltd, a unit of the holding company of salt-to-software conglomerate, to pay Rs 2,700 crore in cash and takeover Rs 15,300 crore of the airline’s debt.

Deal targeted to close by December

• Tatas now have to accept the LoI, post which the Share Purchase Agreement will be signed
• Conditions precedent to the transactions would need to be satisfied by Tatas before they actually take over the operations
• DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Padney said the deal is targeted to be closed by December-end

Subsequent to that, an LoI has now been issued to Tatas confirming the government’s willingness to sell its 100% stake in the airline. “Letter of Intent has been issued today,” DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Padney said here.

Tatas now have to accept the LoI, post which the Share Purchase Agreement will be signed. Conditions precedent to the transactions would need to be satisfied by Tatas before they actually take over the operations. “Normally within 14 days of acceptance of LoI, the SPA is signed. We expect the SPA to be signed fairly fast,” he said.

Pandey said the deal is targeted to be closed by December end. After SPA is signed, the regulatory approvals will have to come in following which the handover process starts.

“When they give the Letter of Acceptance, they will give payment security of 1.5% of EV value which is Rs 270 crore. Rs 270 crore will be payment security in bank guarantee which will be received by us along with acceptance letter to the LoI,” Pandey added. — PTI