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Arun Bajoria group buys Eveready's Delhi realty

Kausik Dutt & Ishita Ayan Dutt

Jute and real estate baron Arun Kumar Bajoria has acquired a Delhi property of Eveready Industries Ltd, the tea and battery maker of the Brij Mohan Khaitan group, for approximately Rs 200 million.

Bajoria acquired the 5,100 square meter realty at 23 Aurangzeb Road through Hooghly Holdings, a subsidiary of his flagship Hooghly Jute, a few weeks ago.

Since the property was mortgaged with ICICI, which has a loan exposure of Rs 4 billion to Eveready, the sale proceeds would go to the financial institution, company sources said.

This deal follows a similar acquisition by Bajoria of RPG Enterprises property in the city. He acquired 50 cottahs of land on downtown Park Street from the Goenkas for over Rs 100 million two months ago.

Prior to this, Bajoria also acquired Magnet House, the former headquarters of GEC Ltd, in central Kolkata from RPG Enterprises. RPG group chief Rama Prasad Goenka had acquired Magnet House, a three storied white edifice on Central Avenue, from GEC. The British company's Asian business was monitored from Magnet House in the past.

Sources in Eveready said the company has been trying to generate money through sale of surplus lands including a 10 acre property in Bhopal and another " large plot of developed land" in Kolkata.

The Bhopal property has been lying unused for the last eight years after closure of the R&D centre located there. There was a manufacturing unit of its carbon product division on the Calcutta plot.

Although Bajoria has properties in and outside Kolkata such as Bangalore and Delhi, it was not clear whether he would take over the Bhopal land from the Khaitans as well. The Bhopal land was also mortgaged with ICICI and had been valued at Rs 70 million.

Eveready, which had sold several tea gardens, has put several more tea estates on the block. The response, so far, has not been encouraging.

Eveready is also transferring shares of some companies to ICICI in lieu of the institution's fees for a loan restructuring. It had recently transferred its entire 20 per cent stake in India Foils and 7.27 per cent stake in George Williamson (Assam), an erstwhile group company, to ICICI.

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