Wockhardt's FCCB holders withdraw winding up plea

Pharma firm Wockhardt  said the trustees of its foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) withdrew their winding up petition against the company from the Bombay High Court today.

Wockhardt had restructured its Rs 3,400-crore foreign currency debt following the global downturn. But it subsequently defaulted on payment to the tune of USD 110 million in 2009, after which, the bondholders dragged the company to the Bombay High Court and filed a winding up petition.

But the company successfully divested its nutrition business to the French company Danone and has so far received Rs 1,280 crore from the deal with which it repaid the remaining Rs 200 crore of its outstanding foreign debt in August as per the High Court direction.

The company now plans to prepay its debt and exit the corporate debt restructuring mechanism in the next few months, Wockhardt chairman Habil Khorakiwala had told the AGM last week. The company is now looking at repaying loans worth Rs 1,300 crore to banks which it had restructured, Khorakiwala had said, adding the company had Rs 900 crore cash in hand.

"The repayments will significantly improve the balancesheet position and our net debt to equity ratio now stands below 1," he said. Wockhardt was unable to pay dividends to its shareholders this year because it has yet to exit CDR, but Khorakiwala has assured shareholders about announcing dividend payouts next year.

The company's stock slipped to a low of Rs 251.25 and a high of Rs 1,437 in the last 52-week period. The stock closed at Rs 1,195.25, down 3.56 percent, on the BSE today, whose main indexSensex slipped 147 points .