The Mumbai bench of NCLT on Tuesday granted the resolution professional of debt ridden steel company Monnet Ispat and Energy an extension of 90 days to complete its insolvency resolution process as the initial 180 days were to expire on January 13, the Economic Times reported. The extension will give the resolution practitioner and lenders more time to negotiate with JSW Steel on the terms of the resolution plan submitted by them to acquire the company. A consortium of Aion Capital Partners and JSW Steel had emerged as the sole bidder for Monnet.

The world's three largest credit-ratings companies have a bit of catching up to do. Eight high-yield developers listed in Hong Kong should now be investment grade, according to Bloomberg's default risk model, which uses market inputs such as debt outstanding, interest expenses and operating cash flow to calculate the probability of firms reneging on their obligations in the year ahead, Bloomberg News reported in a commentary. Bloomberg's default risk model shows that companies from Country Garden to CIFI Holdings deserve an investment-grade ranking.

Listed Philippine Telegraph & Telephone Corp. (PT&T) is poised to implement a capital restructuring plan that would settle long-running obligations ahead of the entry of a foreign strategic partner, Inquirer.net reported. A key feature of the plan, according to PT&T chief operating officer Miguel Bitanga, is the conversion of its creditors into preferred shareholders, which was outlined under the company’s court-mandated rehabilitation. This was linked to a series of steps, including increasing PT&T’s authorized capital.

China Development Bank (CDB), the biggest foreign lender to India's Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom), on Friday withdrew a petition seeking to drag the indebted telecoms carrier into insolvency, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. A lawyer for CDB told the National Company Law Tribunal that the Chinese bank had filed to withdraw the petition. The tribunal allowed CDB's plea to go forward.

Units of HNA Group Co. missed payments due to several Chinese banks in recent weeks, prompting three lenders to freeze some of the borrowers’ unused credit lines, people with knowledge of the matter said. As of Jan. 4, four of the banks still hadn’t collected on principal and interest payments owed late last year, said the people, who spoke on condition the lenders not be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, Bloomberg News reported. They declined to name the units or provide any details on the size of the missed payments. China Citic Bank Corp.

Bonds from China’s property developers face the biggest risk of default in the nation’s domestic debt market as the government’s funding curbs strain their finances, according to a survey of analysts and traders, Bloomberg News reported. Ten out of 15 respondents in a Bloomberg survey late December see some payment failures among developers this year. Most predict yield spreads on corporate bonds that surged to four-year highs in 2017 to climb more.

Insolvency professionals are flummoxed by the latest rule from the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India that prohibits them from outsourcing the work related to resolution of a bankrupt company, The Economic Times reported. "All the assignments in which delegation of authority has taken place by the insolvency professional even if it is with the approval from the Committee of Creditors, the same has to be given a hard relook after this circular," said Mamta Binani, former president of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, and an insolvency professional herself.

Tata Steel, Vedanta, Edelweiss ARC, and Renaissance Steel India are likely to have submitted resolution plans for Electrosteel Steels, one of the 12 companies mandated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for insolvency, Business Standard reported. The last date for submitting resolution plans was Thursday. A Tata Steel spokesperson said: “As a process, we do assess and evaluate various strategic opportunities for growth. This is an ongoing process in the company.” An e-mail sent to Vedanta went unanswered while Edelweiss did not comment.

Things are looking up for investors in billionaire Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications Ltd. after the Indian phone company staved off insolvency by agreeing to sell assets to the chairman’s brother, Bloomberg News reported. But lenders still face a potential hit on their earnings. That’s the view of some observers including Pavitra Sudhindran, credit analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc., who warns that provisions connected with nonperforming loans could sting. “That could hurt their earnings, though we don’t know the extent of the provisions they have already made and are yet to make,” she said.

India’s parliament on Tuesday approved amendments to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code Bill to bar owners of defaulting firms from bidding to buy back assets when they are auctioned as part of bankruptcy proceedings, Reuters reported.