Ruia on prowl again, bids for Daewoo's UP plant

City-based Ruia group, which recently took over Dunlop India, is the sole bidder for the entire unit of Daewoo Motor's passenger car unit at Surajpur in Uttar Pradesh.

This puts the Ruia group above other bidders such as Tatas, Mahindras, Ford and others who have reportedly expressed interest in partial assets of the auto-making unit.

The debt recovery tribunal has expressed interest in selling the Daewoo unit as a whole and not in pieces.

"We have bid for the Daewoo plant," Ruia group Chairman P K Ruia said today without divulging any details of the bid.

The dues of the unit with the department of revenue of the Union government and lenders is estimated to be about Rs 2,000 crore.

In June 2005, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had laid down a formula for sharing of money raised from the auction of the plant.

The department of revenue (customs duty) and lenders would share the amount in the ratio of 45:55.

Asset Reconstruction Co of India Ltd (Arcil) would handle the process of selecting the bidder and manage auction of the plant on directions from DRT.

Arcil, however, was yet to get the details of the bidders from DRT.

The market value of the 204 acre of the unit's land alone was valued between Rs 1,000-1,200 crore.

The Surajpur plant has been closed for the last four years and was not part of the global takeover of Daewoo Motor by General Motors in 2001.

The auction was opened by DRT last year, but it failed to attract even a single bidder for the entire facility.

It was not clear from the Ruia camp whether the group would foray into automobiles.

Ruia has been in focus after successful takeover of PSU Jessop & Co when it was put on the block three years ago.

After that, Ruia took over Dunlop India and Falcon Tyres from the Chabbria group. His taking over ailing and closed units did not end here. He was successful in buying majority stake in two Orissa PSUs.

Ruia recently also announced about building a ship-building facility in West Bengal.