Indian tycoon Gautam Adani is seeking a loan of about 75 billion rupees ($1 billion) to refinance existing debt of Mumbai’s international airport, Bloomberg News reported. Barclays Plc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are among banks in discussions to provide the funds to Adani Airport Holdings Ltd., the people said. Deutsche Bank AG is also in talks to help with the financing. Mumbai International Airport Ltd. has a debt of about 80 billion rupees.
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Five years ago, India came up with a legal answer to its perennial economic challenge of rescuing the money stuck in zombie firms, according to a Bloomberg News commentary. Unlike China, which has the cushion of high savings, India’s inefficient use of limited domestic capital has meant a chronic inability to put its swelling ranks of youth to work. After toying with the idea for more than a decade, the solution New Delhi hit upon was a modern bankruptcy code. The numbers have been a mixed bag.
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Devas Multimedia Pvt., a company seeking over $1.2 billion it won in international arbitration from India, has joined Cairn Energy Plc in seeking to seize Air India Ltd.’s assets abroad, Bloomberg News reported. Calling the flagship airline an “alter ego” of the Indian state and therefore liable for the sovereign’s debts, Devas filed a petition in New York asking Air India to pay the amount or forfeit its U.S. property including planes, cargo handling equipment and artwork.
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Go Airlines India Ltd.’s plans to raise 36 billion rupees ($485 million) via an initial public offering have been put on hold by India’s market regulator, dealing another blow to the debt-laden carrier whose business has been decimated by the coronavirus pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. Go Airlines’ share sale documents will be “kept in abeyance,” the Securities and Exchange Board of India said in a filing late Monday, without specifying the reason why.
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The Mumbai chapter of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) ordered the liquidation of Nakshatra World, a subsidiary of Gitanjali Gems, one of the group companies promoted by fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi, the Economic Times of India reported. The ruling came on an insolvency petition ICICI Bank filed around two years ago against the company, which was also allegedly involved in a money laundering case reported at the Punjab National Bank. The court appointed Santanu Ray, a partner from Delhi-based AAA Insolvency Professionals LLP as the liquidator.
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A bad bank in India that’s expected to launch this month may help reduce one of the world’s worst bad-loan piles but market participants say it’s a long path ahead, Bloomberg News reported. The new institution, which is set to start operations by the end of June, is likely to handle stressed debt worth 2 trillion rupees ($27 billion) over time, according to a BloombergQuint report. That would be about a quarter of the nation’s non-performing debt load.
Billionaire steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal’s younger brother Pramod Mittal was due to be automatically freed from bankruptcy in Britain on Wednesday but has had his bankruptcy suddenly extended by the London high court for failing to cooperate with the bankruptcy trustee.
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Almost four years after Jaypee Infratech was referred for insolvency resolution, Mumbai-based Suraksha group on Wednesday emerged as the preferred bidder in the fourth attempt, beating state-run NBCC by the narrowest of margins, the Times of India reported. Sudhir Valia-controlled Suraksha polled 98.66% of the votes, while NBCC received 98.54%. Valia is a relative of Sun Pharma promoter and managing director Dilip Sanghvi and is also on the board of the country’s largest drug company.
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An Indian bankruptcy court ruled Jet Airways India Ltd. can resume operations under a new owner more than two years after it collapsed, according to Ashish Chhawchharia, the court-appointed professional running the carrier’s insolvency, Bloomberg News reported. Jet Airways, once India’s biggest private carrier, fell into bankruptcy in 2019 under mounting debts. Dubai-based businessman Murari Lal Jalan and Kalrock Capital Management Ltd.
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Around 200 applications for resolution of stressed assets have been filed under the insolvency law since the suspension of fresh proceedings ended on March 24, according to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI), the Economic Times of India reported. Amid the coronavirus pandemic that had significantly impacted economic activities, certain provisions under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) were suspended with effect from March 25, 2020. The suspension was in place for one year till March 24, 2021.
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