Former Spicejet owner tells court to hand stake back

Indian media baron Kalanithi Maran, owner of the Chennai-based conglomerate Sun Group, has asked the High Court of Delhi to give him control of Ajay Singh’s 59.13% stake in SpiceJet (SG, Delhi Int’l) after the loss-making carrier failed to transfer INR2.43 billion rupees (USD33 million) to Maran, the Business Standard newspaper reported. As previously reported, on September 7, the court gave SpiceJet six weeks to deposit the sum, corresponding to interest for warrants and non-convertible cumulative preference shares that had allegedly been agreed and paid for but not issued to Maran, who held a controlling stake in SpiceJet through his company KAL Airways between 2010 and 2015. The dispute dates back to the transfer of ownership of the airline to Singh in 2015, in which shares and warrants were supposed to be provided in two tranches. Besides awarding Maran the shareholding if payment was not made, the court also ruled that the company would not be able to raise new capital from the market through the issuance of shares or the sale of a stake. However, a SpiceJet spokesperson told the Business Standard that the company had launched an appeal against the high court order at the Supreme Court of India. “We have told the Supreme Court that the basic premise under which Maran himself moved court again despite a ruling from the arbitration tribunal was wrong,” the spokesperson said referring to an arbitration tribunal in New Delhi which in July rejected an INR13.23 billion (USD192.5 million) claim made against the airline by the former owner.