SBI-led banks cornered: Jet Airways employees now perceive themselves as bank employees demanding release of salary firstpost.com

Jet Airways, whose wings have been flailing for a long time, is now a quasi-nationalised entity with banks led by State Bank of India (SBI) getting to control 50.5 percent of its equity. Some 114 million shares were issued to them a couple of weeks ago at a deep-discount price of Re 1 per share as mandated by the Reserve Bank ofRBI norms for conversion of loans into equity when the defaulting borrower’s net worth is in the negative. Naresh Goyal, the biological parent of Jet, is now a minority shareholder with about 20 percent stake. Etihad Airways, the Abu Dhabi based strategic partner of Jet retain its 24 percent pre-dilution stake in Jet but is ready to pump in more when the market price of the shares nosedive to Rs 150 per share. Jet has an accumulated loss of about Rs 920 crore.