Yathuri to sign settlement deal with NSEL

Move comes in the wake of stringent action by police against other defaulters

In the wake of  the ongoing action — attachment of immovable properties and arrests of promoters — against defaulting members of the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL),  Chandigarh–based Yathuri Associates has offered to settle its dues.

In a meeting with NSEL officials on Thursday, Gagan Suri, chief executive officer (CEO) of Yathuri, agreed to pay the entire dues of Rs 421.4 crore. He’s given a cheque for Rs 15 crore as first payment, to be deposited in the NSEL escrow account possibly on Friday. “Suri visited the NSEL office on Thursday with the settlement offer, which is being worked out,” sources confirmed.

At present, the HDFC Bank account of Yathuri has been ordered frozen by the economic offences wing (EOW) of the police here. NSEL has, therefore, requested the EOW to defreeze the account, so that the Rs 15-crore cheque could be deposited. Suri has promised to come to the NSEL office on Saturday to enter into a formal settlement agreement, said the sources.

Suri preferred not to comment on the development, citing medical reasons. If the agreement is signed, Yathuri will be the second company to sign one after Mohan India inked a similar pact with NSEL some weeks earlier. While the relevant court had approved this settlement, approval is yet to come from the commodity derivatives market regulator, the Forward Markets Commission (FMC).

The Mohan agreement was signed with a haircut in the payment obligation of 15 per cent but it appears this would not be do in the Yathuri deal.

Widening its probe, the EOW has questioned Iqbal Singh and Daljit Singh, directors of another NSEL defaulter, the Namdhari Group. The latter consists of Namdhari Food International and Namdhari Rice and General Mills; the two companies have payment obligations of Rs 51 crore and Rs 10.5 crore, respectively.

P D Agro, the third largest defaulter at NSEL, with payment obligations of Rs 639.6 crore, is set to visit to the EOW for clarifications on the settlement agreement. Earlier, two cheques of Rs 11 crore each given by the company to NSEL had bounced.

The EOW has also called Ranjeev Aggarwal, director of Primezone Developers, a real estate company, to probe links of investments made by two key ex-NSEL officials, including the former chief executive, Anjani Sinha, and his associate, Amit Mukherjee. Aggarwal was the chief financial officer at PD Agro before starting his real estate venture. Aggarwal has offered to pay Rs 42.8 crore directly to NSEL. This amount was jointly invested by PD Agro, Mohan India and Swastik Overseas in a project being developed by Primezone in Karnal, Haryana, an NSEL statement said. Primezone has agreed to pay NSEL the Rs 42.8 crore in eight instalments, by cheque on an agreed schedule.