Soon after the death of Cafe Coffee Day founder VG Siddhartha, the board of Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd (CDEL), the holding company of Coffee Day group firms, decided on Thursday to sell the group’s 90-acre technology park in Bengaluru to reduce CDEL’s debt burden.
Two people with direct knowledge of CDEL’s board discussions confirmed this, adding that New York-based private equity giant Blackstone Group is one of the top contenders to buy the Global Village Park, which is owned by Tanglin Developments Ltd, a unit of CDEL.
The CDEL board met on Thursday to deliberate on three key issues—a potential sale of Coffee Day group assets to pare debt; ways to ensure smooth continuation of CDEL’s businesses after Siddhartha’s death; and to appoint a forensic audit firm to verify the authenticity of the letter purportedly written by Siddhartha before his untimely death on 29 July.
The board meeting was originally scheduled to consider CDEL’s financial results for the June quarter. However, on 2 August, CDEL said that due to certain unavoidable circumstances, the board will not consider the financial results for the quarter ended 30 June in the 8 August board meeting.
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