Deutsche Bank AG and a Singapore based hedge fund bought more debt of an embattled Indian shadow lender, highlighting the growing foreign interest in the discounted assets of the financier at the center of a credit crisis, Bloomberg News reported. Deutsche Bank has almost doubled the debt it holds of Altico Capital India Ltd. to 3 billion rupees ($42.1 million) in the last four months, while Singapore-based Broad Peak Investment Advisers Ltd. has acquired debt of about 1 billion rupees, people familiar with the matter said.

Deutsche Bank AG has moved an insolvency application against Uttam Galva Steels Ltd. at the National Company Law Tribunal to recover dues against the foreign currency-denominated loans its Singapore branch extended, BloombergQuint reported. Uttam Galva Steels—which had entered into a $20-million credit facility agreement with the lender for its capital and operational needs—had challenged the maintainability of the bank’s application under section 7 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. The section allows financial creditors to file insolvency application.

India’s great telecom melee was bad enough as a brawl between service providers and the state, with operators complaining about the government’s outlandish claims on their past revenue, Bloomberg News reported in a commentary. Now, consumers have jumped into the fray. A confusing three-cornered fight could lead to ugly outcomes: The country’s broken financial system would take a fresh hit; new 5G networks could be delayed; and the government’s annual revenue from the sector might get squeezed.

Lenders to Altico Capital India Ltd. are trying an unusual method to cut debt at the shadow lender, as attempts to sell the company or restructure the loans face challenges including swelling soured credit and a funding squeeze, Bloomberg News reported. Creditors have asked each other to bid for an asset swap that would make real estate firms, until now funded by Altico, liable to directly repay the debt, according to people familiar with the matter.

Bankrupt Indian airline Jet Airways Ltd said it had agreed to sell its assets in Netherlands to Dutch airline KLM, Reuters reported. If the deal is finalised, it will only involve a sale of part of the company’s business and not impact the shareholding pattern, Jet said in a statement dated Jan. 16. It did not detail the assets held in Netherlands. Once India’s biggest private carrier, Jet stopped flying in April after running out of cash, leaving thousands without jobs and pushing up air fares across the country.

India’s Supreme Court ruled that wireless carriers including Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Vodafone Idea Ltd. need to pay $13 billion of dues to the government, rejecting an appeal by operators struggling to stem losses and reduce debt, Bloomberg News reported. A three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra on Thursday dismissed review petitions filed by the telecommunication companies against the October verdict, according to updates on the court’s website.

A Deutsche Bank-led consortium’s efforts to buy out the debt of a power plant operator in eastern India have advanced, after no rival bidder emerged, Bloomberg News reported. The struggling utility is Jindal India Thermal Power Ltd., one of a string of power plants being put up for sale by banks stuck with their defaulting debt. The sector has been hit hard by oversupply in recent years, a consequence of a costly push to bridge India’s once chronic power deficit and expand reach to under-supplied rural areas. Power generators form a significant chunk of India’s $130 billion bad loan pile.

India’s economy is experiencing a sharp slowdown — to the consternation of many observers. For several years, analysts and organisations such as the IMF and World Bank have touted India as the fastest-growing major economy, with the world’s brightest medium-term outlook, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. But in December the Reserve Bank of India, the central bank, cut its forecast for 2019 growth in gross domestic product to 5 per cent. That headline figure actually understates the slowdown.

Bondholders of Reliance Home Finance Ltd. have petitioned India’s National Company Law Tribunal to recover 35 billion rupees ($495 million) after the firm missed payments, Economic Times reported citing a copy of the application, Bloomberg News reported. IDBI Trusteeship, which represents the bondholders, wants the tribunal to seize Reliance Home Finance’s assets and bar the company from agreeing to any debt resolution deal with other lenders. The petition was under the Companies Act and a bankruptcy application is “not actively under consideration for now,” according to the report.

It’s the last thing India’s stricken credit markets need: a record debt bill. Companies must repay an unprecedented 5.9 trillion rupees ($83 billion) of local notes this year, just as corporate defaults spike, Bloomberg News reported. Many firms are already struggling after economic growth slumped to its weakest since 2009. That’s putting India behind China, Indonesia and a few others in the region. Credit market scares have impeded Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to revive growth.