The country's largest bank and Future Group's key lender, the State Bank of India (SBI) on Wednesday sought accountability from the Kishore Biyani-led group over the issue of its retail stores taken over by Reliance Group, Business Standard reported citing sources.
In a preliminary meeting held by lender groups including SBI, they objected to Reliance’s move of taking over as many as 800 Future retail stores while holding Future Retail accountable. They said that the company knew about its stores being taken over by Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail and did not provide any clear answers over the takeover, as per the report.
The development comes days after Future Retail defaulted on its loans to the lenders for a second time this month. In the last two months, Future Retail has defaulted on its loans several times. As part of its Rs 24,713 crore deal with Reliance Retail, Future Group has to sell 19 companies operating in retail, wholesale, logistics, and warehousing segments to Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL).
Over the past two years, the pandemic-hit Future Retail is also in legal trouble with US e-commerce giant Amazon over its 2020 deal with Reliance Retail. Amazon has alleged that Future Group has breached its 2019 deal to acquire a 49-per cent stake in Future Coupons Private Limited(FCPL) and FRL.
The US firm told Supreme Court last month, that the talks with the Future Group to resolve the dispute over Future Retail's merger deal with Reliance Retail have failed and sought intervention to ensure that the stores of FRL are not taken over.
