India

Shares of Zee Entertainment tumbled over 14% to Rs 176.6 in Thursday's trade on BSE after a dedicated bankruptcy court admitted two of Essel Group’s listed companies, Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEEL) and Siti Network, for insolvency proceedings, likely creating hurdles in ZEEL’s merger with Culver Max Entertainment (Sony), the Economic Times of India reported. On a year-to-date basis, ZEEL stock has fallen over 23%. Meanwhile, it has declined by 28% in the last six months.

Authum Investment and Infrastructure has filed a petition in the Kolkata National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) seeking revaluation of the appraisal matrix that gave the winning bidder National Asset Reconstruction Co (NARCL) a higher score in the bid for the twin Srei companies, the Economic Times of India reported. The Mumbai-based non-banking finance company (NBFC) has also offered an additional upfront payment of ₹250 crore over and above its original amount of ₹3,240 crore in a petition filed before the court. The next date for the hearing is set for February 28.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is likely intervening in both the offshore and onshore markets to shield the rupee from the fallout of investors lifting their expectations on the U.S. Federal Reserve's terminal rate, traders said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The rupee has fared much better against the dollar than other emerging market currencies since the blowout U.S. jobs report on Feb. 3 raised bets of a higher-for-longer rate regime. Since then, the rupee has fallen 1.2%.

Adani Transmission will announce debt refinancing plans in a few weeks, executives said on Tuesday in an investor call, Reuters reported. The company, a unit of embattled Indian conglomerate Adani Group, has no plans to raise additional debt for capital expenditure, which it plans to cover with operating cash inflows, the executives said.

The overall recovery rate in Indian insolvency cases till Q3FY23 was 30.4 per cent implying a haircut of approximately 70 per cent, the Economic Times of India reported. The cumulative recovery rate has been on a downtrend, decreasing from 43 per cent in Q1FY20 and 32.9 per cent in Q4FY22 as larger resolutions have already been executed and a significant number of liquidated cases were either BIFR cases and/or defunct with high resolution time, coupled with lower recoverable values, Care Edge said in a report.

The government-backed National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL) won the bid for Srei group's two companies -- Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd and Srei Equipment Finance Ltd -- undergoing insolvency proceedings, an official said, the Economic Times of India reported. The Committee of Creditors on Wednesday approved the plan submitted by NARCL, which offered a Net Present Value (NPV) bid of Rs 5,555 crore, after it received the highest vote of 89.2 per cent from verified creditors.

Adani Enterprises, the flagship listed vehicle of the beleaguered Adani Group conglomerate, has long pitched itself as a good environmental, social and governance company—but it has coal to thank for a reprieve during the most turbulent time in its history, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. On Tuesday, Adani Enterprises swung to a profit of 8.2 billion Indian rupees ($99.3 million) in the quarter ended in December, from a loss of 116.3 million Indian rupees in the year-earlier period, helped by robust revenue growth of 42%.

China must stop taking positions that block debt relief to some of the world’s poorest nations and be willing to take losses on its loans to them, India said in its capacity as the current Group of 20 leader, Bloomberg News reported. “China needs to come out openly and say what their debt is and how to settle it,” said Amitabh Kant, the sherpa for India during its presidency of the G20 this year. “It can’t be that the International Monetary Fund takes a haircut and it goes to settle Chinese debt. How is that possible?

India's Adani Group has appointed accountancy firm Grant Thornton for independent audits of some of its companies in a bid to discredit claims by short-seller Hindenburg Research that have battered its stocks and bonds, two people familiar with the matter said on Monday, Reuters reported. The appointment marks the first major effort by Adani Group to defend itself in the wake of a Jan. 24 report by Hindenburg that accused it of improper use of offshore tax havens and stock manipulation.

India's annual retail inflation in January rose above the central bank's upper threshold for the first time in three months, on higher food prices, vindicating last week's hawkish monetary policy stance, Reuters reported. India's annual retail inflation rate rose to 6.52% in January from 5.72% in December, government data showed on Monday. January's retail inflation was above the Reserve Bank of India's upper targeted limit of 6% for the first time since October and much higher than the 5.9% estimate, according to a Reuters poll of 44 analysts.