MatexNet holds talks for foreign funds for bank NPA JV
By Venkatachari Jagannathan | 20 Sep 2006
Chennai: Online business-to-business (B2B) portal company MatexNet Pvt Ltd has plans to hive off its bank non performing assets (NPA) resolution business into a separate entity to be run in partnership with foreign investors.
Says director S Yogeshwaran, "Several foreign funds are interested in partnering with us in this business. We are talking with a couple of them."
Currently nine banks have appointed MatexNet to resolve their NPAs. "Apart from selling the assets through our site, we also negotiate with the borrowers on behalf of the banks in settling loan," he explains.
When asked about the need for a joint venture as the company is engaged in auctioning stressed assets and negotiating loan settlement he answers, "The idea now is to buy the stressed assets from the banks and later sell them to interested buyers. This activity needs funds. Foreign investors are now particularly interested in this activity and want to have a bigger pie in the emerging opportunity."
MatexNet is open to have minority holding in the proposed joint venture. According to him, foreign funds are ready to invest around $10 million for this business.
