Spain's BBVA denies credit line to bail India's Sahara boss (updated)

Sahara Housingfina

25/03/2015 08:38

(Adds details) 
    MADRID, March 25 (Reuters) - Spain's BBVA SA  BBVA.MC  
denied having any credit exposure to Indian conglomerate Sahara, 
just days after the group told a court it had a line of credit 
from the bank to secure bail for its jailed boss. 
    Subrata Roy has been held in jail for more than a year after 
Sahara  SAHM.BO  SAHR.BO  failed to comply with a court order to 
refund billions of dollars to investors in a bond programme that 
was ruled illegal. Sahara has made several failed attempts to 
raise the bail money. 
    The court has set Roy's bail at $1.6 billion, a product of 
the cost of the bond programme, estimated by regulators to be as 
much as $7 billion. Sahara has said it has paid most of the dues 
to the bondholders. India's markets regulator disputes that. 
    On Monday, India's Supreme Court gave Sahara three more 
months to raise bail after the company told the court it had 
received a line of credit worth 900 million euros ($983 million) 
from BBVA.  ID:nL3N0WP4KF  
    The company told the court it planned to use the loan from 
BBVA to replace a loan from Bank of China  601988.SS  tied to 
its three overseas hotels, which include New York's Plaza hotel 
and  Grosvenor House in London. 
    Sahara has an outstanding debt of $852 million from the 
Chinese bank, the company lawyer told the court. 
    "We have no credit exposure or any relation with Sahara," a 
spokesman for BBVA said. 
    A senior executive at BBVA separately told Reuters on 
condition of anonymity that the bank was never in talks with 
Sahara for a loan and that the mention of its name in the court 
proceedings was a "surprise". 
    A Sahara spokesman did not respond to an e-mail and phone 
call requesting comment. 
    The Supreme Court has said it could ask a receiver to 
auction Sahara's assets if it failed to raise bail. 
 ($1 = 0.9147 euros) 
 
 (Reporting by Jesus Aguado in MADRID and Sumeet Chatterjee in 
MUMBAI; Writing by Paul Day; Editing by Tomas Cobos and Will 
Waterman) 
 ((paul.e.day@thomsonreuters.com; +34 91 585 83 08; Reuters 
Messaging: paul.e.day.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: BBVA SAHARA/