Promoters of Essar Steel are not yet off the hook despite banks getting large parts of their dues back, The Times of India reported. The Lakshmi Mittal-owned metals group ArcelorMittal last weekend transferred over Rs 39,000 crore to lenders for the steel company he won after a legal battle that lasted over two years. Another Rs 2,500 crore will be repaid from the steel company’s internal accruals.
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Moody’s Investors Service said funding challenges at India’s non-bank financing companies are increasing the risk of asset quality deterioration at banks, which are already saddled with the world’s worst bad-debt pile, Bloomberg News reported. Risks of loan losses at shadow financiers will weaken their financials, prompting banks to further reduce lending to them and worsening their funding stress, the ratings company said in a report dated Friday.
A bankruptcy court has admitted an insolvency resolution plea filed by Bank of Baroda against Mumbai-based Genesis Resorts, which defaulted on loans of about Rs 230 crore, The Economic Times reported. The division bench of judicial member Bhaskara Pantula Mohan and technical member Rajesh Sharma restrained the company and its promoters from transferring, encumbering, alienating or disposing of the company’s assets.
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Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today introduced a bill in the Lok Sabha to amend the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, the Times of India reported. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Second Amendment) Bill, 2019 was approved by the Union Cabinet yesterday. The amendments in the law seek to remove bottlenecks and streamline the corporate insolvency resolution process, wherein successful bidders will bering fenced from any risk of criminal proceedings for offenses committed by previous promoters of companies concerned.
Twelve state-owned Indian banks are petitioning for ex-billionaire Vijay Mallya to be declared bankrupt over 1.15 billion pounds ($1.52 billion) in unpaid debts, Bloomberg News reported. The banks and an asset restructuring company, led by the State Bank of India, have taken the tycoon to a London court in what lawyers have described as “the end of the road” in their long-running battle. Mallya hasn’t paid anything toward the debt, the banks’ lawyers told the court yesterday.
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Koovs Plc said yesterday that administrators had sold its business and assets to SGIK 3 Investments Ltd, an entity owned by the online fashion retailer’s largest secured creditor and chairman Waheed Alli, Reuters reported. The company said earlier yesterday that it would apply to place itself into administration after its largest shareholder, India’s Future Lifestyle Fashion, failed to invest a further 6.5 million pounds ($8.34 million). Indian billionaire Kishore Biyani’s Future Lifestyle Fashion is part of the country’s largest retail firm Future Group.
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The government is set to firewall companies facing insolvency resolution from the action fo their promoters to make it more attractive for suitors, The Times of India reported. The 10-odd amendments set to be moved by finance and corporate affairs minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament will provide that promoters of companies where insolvency action is initiated will have unlimited liability in case of any criminal action while the corporate entity will be being-fenced from the action.
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Koovs Plc said today that it would apply to place the online fashion retailer into administration as Indian billionaire Kishore Biyani’s Future Lifestyle Fashions failed to invest a further 6.5 million pounds ($8.34 million), Reuters reported. Koovs said that it could not get alternative funding and expects its assets to be bought from the administrator by a company connected to the Koovs’ largest secured creditor and chairman Waheed Alli, ensuring the continuation of the operating business.
In a major development, the RBI-appointed Administrator for the beleaguered Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DFHL) on Thursday asked all its fixed deposit and non-convertible debenture holders to file their claims before December 17, The Economic Times reported. The move comes ahead of the Supreme Court hears a group of investors who have moved it on the matter, and barely three days after the National Company Law Tribunal's Mumbai bench admitted the RBI's application for initiating insolvency proceedings against the cash-strapped firm, and permitted it to go ahead in the matter.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is considering easing lending rules for shadow banks, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that would give the cash-starved financiers access to funds, Bloomberg News reported. Modi’s cabinet is likely to discuss allowing state banks to provide so-called credit enhancement against securities rated BBB+ to non bank financiers, the people said, asking not to be identified before a public announcement. That’s the fifth level below what’s permitted under the current plan.