ICICI Bank Ltd, a major lender to Unimark Remedies Ltd, is in talks with Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Co. (ARC) Ltd to sell its loans, according to two people aware of the development. A couple of other ARCs, including Multiples ARC Pvt. Ltd, have also evinced interested in Mumbai-based Unimark but the discussions were unsuccessful, one of the two people said, requesting anonymity. The discussions with Edelweiss ARC is at a preliminary stage, the second person said on condition of anonymity.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has appointed an interim insolvency professional for SmartCity (Kochi) Infrastructure, after admitting a payment default claim by a creditor against the joint venture between the Kerala government and Dubai's Tecom Investments. The Kerala government holds a 16% stake in the IT special economic zone, with Dubai Holding's Tecom unit owning the rest. The first phase commenced operations last year and the project is expected to become fully operational by 2020. Kochi Smart City, Kerala's signature IT project, is coming up on 246 acres of land.

Almost a year after China rolled out steps to rein in soaring corporate leverage, concerns are rising that undeserving companies are benefiting while households are getting saddled with risks, Bloomberg News reported. China unveiled guidelines for debt-to-equity swaps in October, part of measures to trim the world’s biggest corporate debt loads. The idea was that healthy firms would use the program to cut interest-bearing borrowings, while bloated companies would be shunned.

China's moves to crack down on illicit banking activities have achieved initial targets and 20 sets of new regulations to increase supervision will be issued this year, the chief of the banking regulator's Prudential Regulation Bureau said on Friday, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The new regulations will cover policy banks, online lending, interest rate risks and asset management firms, Xiao Yuanqi told a briefing.

India is taking a series of aggressive steps to reduce the mountain of bad debts weighing down its banks and threatening to derail the world’s fastest-growing large economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. India’s parliament last week passed a law empowering its central bank to force some of the country’s largest companies into bankruptcy proceedings. The move follows last year’s overhaul of the bankruptcy code, another attempt to make it faster for creditors to get their money back in a country notorious for drawn-out insolvency proceedings.

The National Company Law Tribunal-appointed Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) Anuj Jain on Wednesday met with the chief executive officer and senior officials of the Yamuna Expressway authority to discuss issues pertaining to insolvency proceedings against Jaypee Infratech, the Hindustan Times reported. The meeting took place at the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority’s (YEIDA) office in Greater Noida.

Growth in China’s broad money supply slipped to a fresh record low, signaling authorities aren’t letting up in their drive to curb excess borrowing and safeguard the financial system, Bloomberg News reported. Authorities pushing to cut excess leverage have squeezed the massive shadow bank sector, which shrank for the first time in nine months. Yet with aggregate financing remaining robust and bond issuance rebounding, the central bank is still providing ample support for businesses to avoid derailing growth ahead of a key Communist Party congress this fall.

Leading central banks now own a fifth of their governments’ total debt, a sign of the scale of the challenge they will face in unwinding unprecedented stimulus measures deployed over the past decade, the Financial Times reported. Since the financial crisis emerged, the world’s biggest central banks have carried out large-scale purchases of bonds and other securities in a bid to boost the global economy by driving down borrowing costs for households and businesses.

China had unexpected buoyancy in its economy to thank for an easing off in corporate defaults in the first half, Bloomberg News reported. But as growth shows signs of pulling back, the question is: will it last? Despite alarm over the risks posed by China’s daunting debt pile ticking up in the first six months of the year, the country actually saw a drop in corporate distress, with 0.27 percent of issuers defaulting, versus 0.55 percent in all of 2016, according to China Lianhe Credit Rating Co. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., too, saw Chinese company leverage drop in the first half.

Tata Steel Ltd. and the trustee of the British Steel Pension Scheme have agreed to terms to separate the plan from the Indian steelmaker’s U.K. unit, eliminating the last hurdle for it to proceed with a strategy to place European operations into a joint venture, Bloomberg News reported. The Mumbai-based company has signed the regulated apportionment arrangement with the pension trustee and the terms are expected to take effect in a month’s time, the trustee said in a statement Friday.