New Delhi: Almost five months after bidding closed, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has announced Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Ltd as the winner to acquire the bankrupt Jaiprakash Associates(JAL), the commission said in a release on Tuesday, October 14.
C-2025/09/1328: Commission approves acquisition of Jaiprakash Associates Limited by Vedanta Limited pic.twitter.com/1AMPhHRk62
— CCI (@CCI_India) October 14, 2025
Vedanta secured the bid with an offer of Rs.17,000 crore, beating Adani’s ₹12,600 crore offer for the beleaguered company with business interests in hotels, cement, real estate, sports and power generation. Based on this deal, Jaiprakash Associates’ lenders will receive a 71% haircut on the Rs.57,185 crores of the receivables from the group, under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) process.
However, Vedanta may have to cough up more for the company if JAL wins the case against the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) over a land allotment dispute pending before the Supreme Court.
Even though there were others in the fray, including Dalmia Bharat Cement, Jindal Power and PNC Infratech — the case against YEIDA was a major sticking point, where the company hadn’t paid its dues for the over 1,000 hectares allotted to it for the Jaypee Sports City.
Adani has lost out here even though it submitted an ‘unconditional’ bid for the company, even as other bidders and creditors expected clarity on the total value of the deal.
For Gautam Adani, this will remain a serious setback, especially as he looked to bolster his lead in the cement business, which is currently the second largest in India.
Over the past decade, Gautam Adani’s Adani Enterprises has been aggressively expanding its infrastructure empire, mostly on the back of debt-financed acquisitions. Currently, the company has to repay almost ₹2.37 lakh crore in debt, used to finance its ₹92,725.5 crore Holcim cement acquisition in 2022, its ₹31,027 crore acquisition of SB Energy in 2021 and its ₹18,800 crore acquisition of Reliance Infrastructure in 2017, among others in the media, gas and port verticals.
The Hindenburg saga did affect the company temporarily, but there are chances that this aggressive expansion could, one day, relegate Gautam Adani to the ranks of fallen entrepreneurs like Subroto Roy of Sahara or Vijay Mallya of Kingfisher Airlines.
For now, the Adani Group has lost out on a golden opportunity to boost its cement and real estate empire nationwide. But the company still has a lot on its plate, and how it manages to meet creditors’ and shareholders’ expectations remains to be seen.
