An Indian appeals tribunal has ruled against Tata Steel Ltd’s effort to dismiss rival bids for Bhushan Power and Steel, boosting JSW Steel Ltd’s offer to buy the indebted steel maker, Reuters reported. The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) said the plea by Tata Steel was “not maintainable” as it was up to the committee of creditors of Bhushan Power and Steel to accept a debt resolution plan that could maximize asset value. The tribunal said it would not interfere with JSW Steel’s bid because more than 97 percent of the indebted firm’s creditors had approved the plan.
Resources Per Country
- Afghanistan
- Armenia
- Australia
- Azerbaijan
- Bangladesh
- Bhutan
- Brunei
- Cambodia
- China
- Cook Islands
- Cyprus
- Fiji
- Georgia
- Hong Kong
- India
- Indonesia
- Japan
- Kazakhstan
- Kyrgyzstan
- Laos
- Macau
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Micronesia
- Mongolia
- Myanmar
- Nepal
- New Zealand
- North Korea
- Pakistan
- Papua New Guinea
- Philippines
- Singapore
- South Korea
- Sri Lanka
- Taiwan
- Tajikistan
- Thailand
- Turkey
- Turkmenistan
- Uzbekistan
- Vanuatu
- Vietnam
Wadhawan Global Capital, parent of an Indian mortgage lender hit by allegations of financial irregularities, sold its stake in another unit to funds managed by Blackstone LP, Bloomberg News reported. Wadhawan Global sold its 70 percent holding in Aadhar Housing Finance Ltd., it said in a statement on Saturday. Its unit Dewan Housing Finance Corp. also sold its 9.2 percent Aadhar stake as part of the same transaction. Terms weren’t disclosed.
India’s Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom) on Friday said it will seek fast track resolution through National Company Law Tribunal, the court that deals with bankruptcy cases, to resolve its debt position, Reuters reported. The company said lenders had not received any proceeds from its asset monetization plans, and that its overall debt resolution process had not made any progress. Over twelve months, talks with forty lenders to reach a consensus has been impossible and has driven them to the bankruptcy court, the debt-laden telecom company said.
A half-built Turkish residential development of hundreds of mini-castles won a reprieve from bankruptcy on Friday when creditors voted to allow a construction company to complete work on the project, Reuters reported. The Burj al Babas project, set among hills about 200 km (120 miles) east of Istanbul, was conceived as a luxury housing development with row upon row of identical cream-coloured homes, shaped like chateaus with grey turrets and all built around a shopping mall and hotel.
Shares of Indian home loan provider Dewan Housing Finance Corp Ltd slumped 20 percent on Thursday, after government sources told Reuters a probe had been launched into allegations of financial mismanagement against the company, Reuters reported. The allegations are the latest setback for India’s shadow banking sector. A string of defaults at lender Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Service Ltd (IL&FS) triggered sharp falls in Indian stock and debt markets last autumn amid fears of contagion spreading to the rest of the financial sector.
Some global investors with an eye on China act as if trade friction between the mainland and the US is the only factor worrying markets. That has especially been the case for investors in China shares. But investors also need to pay attention to the dynamics of corporate credit in China — and not just the last salvo between the two competing powers, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. The fact is, the country is in the grip of a credit crunch.
India’s shadow lenders are facing a fresh threat, just as they were starting to recover from the fallout of landmark defaults last year by one of their own, Bloomberg News reported. The lenders could come up against a new cash shortage, if concerns about debt at conglomerate Essel Group ricochet through India’s money markets, according to Citibank and Credit Suisse. There’s reason to think that may happen, the argument goes, after Essel’s billionaire founder Subhash Chandra said on Friday that it has increased debt levels and a diminished ability to service borrowings.
As SoftBank Group Corp. continues its transformation into a giant investment fund, some analysts are increasingly watching a metric more familiar to lenders as they judge its creditworthiness, Bloomberg News reported. And by that gauge, they say, its massive debt pile looks manageable. SoftBank’s loan-to-value ratio, its net interest-bearing debt over the value of its investment portfolio, is less than 20 percent, according to separate calculations by Daiwa Securities Group Inc. and SMBC Nikko Securities Inc.
Chinese executives are sounding warning bells over the world’s second-largest economy. At least 20 companies, including China Life Insurance Co. and Chongqing Changan Automobile Co., told investors late Tuesday that full-year earnings would fall well short of expectations, Bloomberg News reported. Reasons they cited included the country’s economic slowdown, as well as recent changes to accounting rules and the equity market’s $2.3 trillion rout last year, the world’s biggest loss of value. China Life fell as much as 4.3 percent in onshore trading Wednesday.
India’s largest lender is finding fear can be a potent weapon in recovering loans. With 1.8 trillion rupees ($25 billion) in bad corporate debt to clean up, State Bank of India is having an easier time negotiating with founders keen to avoid the nation’s two-year-old bankruptcy law, according to Anshula Kant, a managing director overseeing stressed assets at the lender, Bloomberg News reported. That’s because a crackdown by policy makers has convinced business owners that they risk losing their companies once the courts become involved.