BPL shareholders question investments

A section of BPL Ltd shareholders have raised concerns over various investment decisions made by the company.

These shareholders constitute the second disaffected group, the first being a few financial institutions which are unhappy with the corporate debt restructuring being undertaken by BPL for its Rs 1,400 crore debt. A couple of these FIs have in fact initiated action for winding up the company.

Company sources declined to comment on the issues raised by the shareholders as they said they were not new to such complaints which are routinely reported to the regulators as required.

The shareholder, Jai M Patil, has sought clarification from the management as to who owns Kleer Industries in which BPL invested Rs 50 crore, the subsequent routing of exports through Kleer and then waiving a further Rs 50 crore of export receivables from it.

The decision to write off another Rs 50 crore of export dues from a UK entity BPL Eurotrade has also been questioned.

Other than these two export writeoffs, BPL's investment of Rs 115 crore into BPL Power Projects (AP) Limited through Bharat Energy Ventures has also come under shareholder scrutiny. The 500 MW power project, so far a non-starter, has depleted the company's resources resulting in erosion of shareholders' value.

The shareholders have also sought to know what are the returns on the Rs 700 crore investments by BPL Ltd into its affiliate companies like BS Refrigeration, BPL Display Devices, BST Limited, BS Appliances, BPL Engineering and Alpha Securities.

Patil has further stated that these investments have prejudicially affected the interests of BPL Ltd and hit them hard after they invested their hard-earned money in the company.

"The board of directors of the company have a legal and moral obligation to ensure that the interests of the company and consequently, the interests of shareholders are protected. I would therefore expect that directors of the company, in their fiduciary capacity, will examine the issues raised immediately," Patil said.

He also said that he will be constrained to approach SEBI, department of company affairs and other bodies if the queries are not answered at the earliest.

If the shareholders take up the issue with SEBI, BPL Ltd might have more problems on its hands. Shareholder disaffection is the last thing it wants when the four-year SEBI ban on it in accessing public markets is about to end.