Shares of Vijay Mallya-led Kingfisher Airlines today fell in an upbeat market,following disclosure by two promoter entities having pledged their entire shareholding in the airline with lenders. The share price of Kingfisher Airlines today fell by 0.6 per cent to close at Rs 39.30,even as the BSE benchmark Sensex surged ahead by a whopping 351.33 points,or 1.9 per cent,amid an overall strong market sentiments. Kingfisher disclosed yesterday that two of its promoters,United Breweries Holdings Lrs and Kingfisher Finvest India Ltd have pledged 100 per cent of their respective holdings. The two promoters together hold nearly 20.6 crore shares,which are currently worth over Rs 800 crore. The airline,which operates under Kingfisher and Kingfisher Red brands,has a market value of Rs 1,950 crore. "The equity shares were pledged pursuant to requirements prescribed under the debt recast package entered into by Kingfisher Airlines with certain lenders," Kingfisher said,but did not disclose the name of the lenders. The latest round of pledging took place on June 16,when United Breweries Holdings pledged about 11.3 crore shares,taking its total number of pledged shares to 19.9 crore. On the same day,Kingfisher Finvest India pledged 23.2 lakh shares,taking its total pledging to 6.34 crore shares. In the airline,United Breweries Holdings owns 40.10 per cent stake,while Kingfisher Finvest India has 12.75 per cent and the entire shareholding of the two are now pledged. The other promoter entities of the airline include Mallya himself and UB Overseas Ltd. While Mallya holds 3.04 per cent stake in his personal capacity,UB Overseas has 2.72 per cent. These are the only two entities whose shares are not pledged currently. Together,all the promoters hold 58.61 per cent stake in the company. Till June 3,nearly 50 per cent of the airline's total promoter holding was pledged,which is now estimated to have increased to over 90 per cent. Its major non-promoter shareholders include SBI (5.7 per cent),ICICI Bank (5.3 per cent),IDBI Bank (3.5 per cent),Bank of India (1.75 per cent),Uco Bank (1.4 per cent) and Punjab National Bank (1.14 per cent). These banks are believed to have acquired shares after conversion of their loans into equity earlier this year. The airline had restructured its debt in April to reduce its debt by nearly one-fifth to about Rs 6,000 crore,by agreeing to certain lender banks converting loans worth Rs 750 crore into shares worth 23 per cent stake in the company. The airline has been struggling financially for many years now and it suffered a loss of over Rs 1,000 crore in the fiscal year ended March 2011. Prior to this,it had posted a net loss of Rs 1,647 crore in 2009-10.
