For many Indian tycoons, 2019 turned woeful as lenders -- empowered by the nation’s recent bankruptcy law and desperate to clean up soured debt from their books -- started seizing assets of delinquent firms or dragged them into insolvency, Bloomberg Quint reported. Indian banks wrote off a record $39 billion of loans in the 18 months through September in a bid to repair their balance sheets as they battled the world’s worst bad debt pile.

Indian carriers are likely to end this fiscal year through March with huge losses, hampered by their ability to raise fares even during the traditionally strong October-December quarter because of cut-throat competition, said three airline officials, requesting anonymity, Livemint reported. The collapse of Jet Airways (India) Ltd in April because of a severe cash crunch and a large debt pile has failed to lift industry fares as other airlines jumped to add capacity.

The financial gearing of Asia Pacific’s largest companies has risen for a second year following a period of deleveraging, but market participants don’t see cause for alarm, Bloomberg News reported. The median total debt-to-total equity for non-financial companies in the MSCI Asia Pacific Index reached about 44% in the first nine months of 2019. That is slightly higher than the 41% seen in 2007, before the global financial crisis. Still, for many analysts, a low interest-rate environment, healthy cash balances and a favorable global economic outlook provide reassurance.

As bond defaults become an accepted norm in China, Beijing is shifting its focus to what happens next. China’s regulators are pushing to improve the debt restructuring process, currently notoriously opaque and protracted, Bloomberg News reported. Senior officials from bodies including the central bank and securities regulator this week urged that defaults be handled more efficiently and transparently, saying action is needed to restore investor confidence.

China’s central bank moved another step toward interest-rate liberalization by asking banks to price outstanding loans with new benchmark rates that are seen as more responsive to market movements, The Wall Street Journal reported. The People’s Bank of China said Saturday that commercial banks in the country should start replacing old benchmark lending rates with the Loan Prime Rate in pricing the loans issued before Jan. 1, 2020. The move will effectively scrap the old benchmark lending rates.

Whichever way you look at it, it’s been an annus horribilis for many big name retailers. In 2019, we witnessed the collapse of a slew of Aussie favourites, with some international players also folding in recent months, news.com.au reported. So where did it all go wrong for these iconic companies – and what does 2020 hold for our struggling retail sector? According to Queensland University of Technology retail expert Dr Gary Mortimer, there are two main factors that caused the downfall of many businesses in 2019 – changing consumer tastes and “overcrowded, hyper-competitive markets”.

Defaults across Asia may be headed even higher next year, with trouble seen especially in China and India, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported on a Bloomberg News story. Many investors expect fewer bailouts by the Chinese government after it recently let commodities trader Tewoo Group default in the biggest failure on a dollar bond by a state-owned firm in two decades. Companies in the region have been on a buying spree fueled by debt. Those factors could make things even worse in 2020 after China onshore defaults rose to a record in 2019.

Shares of Jet Airways (India) were locked in 5 per cent upper circuit for the seventh straight day at Rs 28.25 on the BSE on Thursday as the creditors of the shuttered airline decided to seek fresh initial bids for the airline, Business Standard reported. The stock is trading at its highest level since September 30, 2019. The Committee of Creditors (CoC) would seek fresh Expression of Interest (EoI), according to a regulatory filing on Monday.

The former head of a regional bank rescued by Chinese authorities this year is set to spend the rest of his life behind bars after a court convicted him of corruption and other crimes on Thursday, the Financial Times reported. Jiang Xiyun, former chairman of Hengfeng Bank, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve — a punishment usually commuted to life in prison after the reprieve — by a court in eastern Shandong province, where the troubled financial institution is based.

Indian initial public offerings tumbled to a 4-year low by value in 2019 as the economy slowed, but some analysts are hoping for better in 2020 on the back of potential government reforms likely to boost stock markets, Reuters reported. Funds raised by Indian IPOs fell to just $2.8 billion this year, the lowest in four years, according to data from Refinitiv. In 2017, the proceeds hit a record $11.7 billion before falling to $5.5 billion in 2018. “2019 has been the worst year from an IPO market perspective,” said Sandip Khetan, a partner at consultancy EY.