The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has revised the eligibility requirements of insolvency professionals hired to run companies undergoing bankruptcy proceedings, Mint reported. Insolvency professionals are required to have experience in any of the professional fields such as management, law, chartered accountancy, company secretaryship, or cost accounting. The new changes give more flexibility to professionals given that some of the professionals may have experience in more than one discipline.
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The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) has completed five years, and critics have focused mainly on two issues: large write-offs of loans by the banks and undue losses to stakeholders like employees and minority shareholders, The Print reported. On both these issues, fears and allegations that the IBC has been a failure are not supported by facts or rationale. Let us see why these are misplaced beliefs. The job of creditors is to generate a return in exchange for the risk arising from the disbursement of loans. So, unless it is too high, loss on loans is not an unusual incident.
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Stressed steel plants, acquired under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) resolution process, are seeing faster returns, Swarajya reported. Despite pandemic-linked blips, domestic demand outlook remains strong, which has helped acquirers ramp up utilization levels. The ongoing steel upcycle will also mean stronger-than-expected realizations over the medium term. Consequently, acquirers may see 20 per cent faster payback and are well set to tap the brownfield potential housed under these assets.
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Indian farmers, protesting against new agriculture laws they say threaten their livelihoods, started a sit-in near parliament in the capital, renewing a push for a repeal of the laws, Reuters reported. In the longest-running growers' protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, tens of thousands of farmers have camped out on major highways leading to New Delhi for more than seven months.
More than 1.5 million children worldwide saw a parent, custodial grandparent or other relative who cared for them die from COVID-19, according to a study published by the Lancet, UPI reported. Of these children, more than 1 million experienced one or both parents dying during the first 14 months of the pandemic, and another 500,000 experienced the death of a grandparent caregiver living in their own home, the data showed.
The recovery as a percentage of gross nonperforming assets moderated to 12.8 percent in 2020-21 from 15.8 percent in the previous fiscal year against the backdrop of the pandemic, Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat K Karad informed India’s Parliament on Monday, the Business Standard reported. As per Reserve Bank of India data on global operations, he said, scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) have recovered an amount of Rs 4,18,687 crore during the last three financial years.
Realty developers Mantra Properties and Ashdan Developers are in fray to acquire Pune-based real estate developer D S Kulkarni Developers through the ongoing insolvency process with separate bids of over Rs 800 crore each, the Economic Times of India reported. While Mantra Properties has bid Rs 880 crore, Ashdan Developers has bid Rs 827 crore in the third revision of their plans to acquire the debt-laden company and its projects. The Committee of Creditors (CoC) is expected to take a final call on both the resolution plans this week.
India's central bank has ordered Mastercard to stop adding new customers for failing to comply with the country's data storage rules, escalating a dispute between Indian authorities and U.S. financial services groups over the control of customer data, the Financial Times reported. The Reserve Bank of India said that Mastercard had not complied with rules introduced in 2018 that bar payment companies from transferring customer data overseas. The regulations, which were fiercely resisted by U.S. payment companies, required all financial data to be stored exclusively in India.
Adani Enterprises Ltd. has taken control of Mumbai’s international airport from GVK Group, in a bold bet by billionaire Gautam Adani that travel will stage a rapid recovery after being crushed by the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. The deal for Mumbai International Airport Ltd., India’s second busiest, makes Adani Airport Holdings Ltd. the nation’s largest airport infrastructure company, accounting for 25% of all passenger traffic and 33% of air cargo, according to a statement late Tuesday.
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India formally set up a bad loan bank as part of the nation’s ongoing efforts to remove one of the world’s largest piles of soured debt from the balance sheet of financiers and accelerate lending, Bloomberg News reported. The firm was registered as the National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd. on July 7 with Padmakumar Madhavan Nair as the managing director, according to filings with the Registrar of Companies, where firms must register before becoming operational. NARCL’s paid-up capital is 746 million rupees ($10 million), according to the filing.
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