Banks to cut price of Kingfisher Villa and auction again: PNB

New Delhi: The consortium of 17 banks may reduce the reserve price of over Rs 85 crore to auction Kingfisher Villa in Goa again as efforts to sell the property to recover dues failed last month.

The villa was owned by United Breweries Holdings, one of the Vijay Mallya group companies, and mortgaged by the now-grounded Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) to the consortium of banks to secure loans in 2010.

"The consortium failed to sell the Kingfisher property at that price. Maybe, we will be reducing the price and again auction it. Next time, probably we will get some buyer, we have to also market and sell the Goa property," Ram S Sangapure, Executive Director, Punjab National Bank (PNB), told PTI.

Vijay Mallya owes over Rs 9,000 crore to lenders like SBI, PNB, IDBI Bank, Bank of Baroda, Allahabad Bank, Federal Bank and Axis Bank, among others.

Of the amount locked in, the state-owned PNB has exposure of Rs 1,100 crore, including interest money, Sangapure said.

He said the group of banks has taken all legal action and has seized physical properties wherever they could.

The SBI-led consortium had fixed the auction price of the Kingfisher Villa, the sea-facing plush property in Goa, at Rs 85.29 crore, which failed to attract any buyers at the auction held on October 19, 2016.

The banks had taken the possession of the villa in May this year after a protracted legal battle with United Spirits over tenancy rights.

In a bid to partly recover their dues from the beleaguered Kingfisher Group, the lenders had opened the villa for inspection to interested bidders during September 26-27 and October 5-6 this year.

Mallya left the country in March and is currently said to be in Britain, having defied several court orders to come back to India.

Besides, the lenders' efforts to sell other KFA properties, including a luxury private jet and brand Kingfisher as well the Kingfisher House in Mumbai, all met with repeated failure.