India

A ministerial panel headed by home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday approved the drafts of expression of interest (EoI) and share purchase agreement (SPA) for the privatisation of debt-ridden Air India, but analysts were still sceptical about the deal being concluded in the current financial year, The Financial Express reported. The EoI will be issued later this month. The AI Specific Alternative Mechanism (AISAM) headed by Shah also approved a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) as well as another debt restructuring plan for the airline, sources said, without elaborating.

The race to find a rescuer for a struggling Indian shadow bank at the center of an industry crisis has narrowed, Bloomberg News reported. Altico Capital India Ltd. is one of the latest caught up in the nation’s shadow banking crisis that started in 2018, and had been courting suitors. One of them, Kotak Investment Advisors Ltd., won’t make a binding bid for Altico by a Jan. 15 deadline, people familiar with the matter said. In India, non-bank financiers play a crucial role in funding everything from condominium construction to purchases of personal goods like cars and phones.

Creditors to a struggling Indian shadow financier, once controlled by former billionaires Shivinder Singh and Malvinder Singh, are finalizing a rare debt recast in the sector by writing off almost half of the company’s loans, people familiar with the matter said, Bloomberg News reported. Lenders to Religare Finvest Ltd., including State Bank of India, have agreed to take a 49% haircut on its 58 billion rupees ($808 million) debt, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public. The restructuring may be implemented as early as the end of January, they said.

The Supreme Court has stayed an NCLAT order allowing Anjanee Kumar Lakhotia, the promoter of ailing MBL Infrastructure, to take over the company under a resolution plan submitted under the Insolvency Code despite a specific bar against it in the law, The Economic Times reported. The top court will now examine the issue on February 2, 2020.

Public sector lender Uco Bank has made a recovery of Rs 900 crore from four stressed accounts where a resolution was reached under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code or outside the framework, The Telegraph reported. This puts the bank on track in its pursuit to bring down net non performing assets as a proportion of advances to less than 6 per cent, a key requirement to come out of the Prompt Corrective Action framework of the RBI. The bank’s managing director and CEO A.K.

Texmaco Rail & Engineering, the flagship company of the Adventz Group, on Friday said the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has set aside an order passed by the Kolkata bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to initiate insolvency proceedings against erstwhile Bright Power Projects (lndia), now an unit of the company, The Financial Express reported.

JSW Energy on Thursday said it has entered into a pact with Jaiprakash Power Ventures Ltd (JPVL) to restructure outstanding debt of Rs 751.77 crore owed to the company, Business Standard reported. Under the pact, an amount of Rs 351.77 crore will be converted into equity shares of JPVL with a face value of Rs 10 each and Rs 280 crore will be written off, JSW Energy said in a BSE filing.

Shares of rating companies that missed signs of a default that triggered India’s mini-Lehman moment are soaring after the nation’s markets regulator imposed only a small penalty, Bloomberg News reported. Care Ratings Ltd. posted record gains and Icra Ltd. saw its biggest four-day advance in more than a year after the Securities and Exchange Board of India on Dec. 26 fined them 2.5 million rupees ($35,000) each on charges they overlooked facts while assessing Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd. The probes didn’t find any malafide intent.

Financial creditors to Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd. have submitted claims worth Rs 86,892 crore against the mortgage lender taken to insolvency courts by the central bank, Bloomberg Quint reported. R Subramaniah Kumar, the administrator appointed by the Reserve Bank of India, has so far admitted claims worth nearly Rs 80,980 crore before the insolvency proceedings begin, according to information available on the DHFL website. Mutual funds and other bondholders have claimed Rs 45,550 crore. The administrator admitted most of these claims.

For many Indian tycoons, 2019 turned woeful as lenders -- empowered by the nation’s recent bankruptcy law and desperate to clean up soured debt from their books -- started seizing assets of delinquent firms or dragged them into insolvency, Bloomberg Quint reported. Indian banks wrote off a record $39 billion of loans in the 18 months through September in a bid to repair their balance sheets as they battled the world’s worst bad debt pile.