India’s economy contracted 7.5 per cent year-on-year in the quarter ending September, taking it into a technical recession as strict lockdown measures to deal with the coronavirus pandemic continued to weigh on output, the Financial Times reported. The performance was better than many analysts had forecast but still reflected the heavy blow the pandemic has delivered to what was recently the world’s fastest-growing large economy.

Zambia’s state mining arm ZCCM-IH plans to appeal a court ruling in favour of Vedanta , which has sought arbitration in a dispute over its jointly owned copper mine that is facing liquidation, the mining minister said. India-based Vedanta has been locked in a protracted dispute with the Zambian government since May 2019, when Lusaka appointed a liquidator for the mine. “ZCCM-IH has already indicated that they are appealing because they are not happy with the court judgment,” Mining Minister Richard Musukwa told parliament on Thursday. Last week, a Zambian court ordered a halt

India’s stressed asset deals are starting to look cosy. Local tycoon Gautam Adani’s roads-to-mining empire narrowly outbid U.S.-based Oaktree with a $4 billion bid for a collapsed housing lender, but it was submitted after a deadline passed and cheekily expanded on its original plan, Reuters reported. It’s the second time in just a few months that the industrialist has blindsided foreign buyers. The higher offer from Adani Enterprises might be welcomed by creditors led by State Bank of India.

In a move aimed at speeding up the liquidation process, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India amended its regulations to allow a corporate debtor’s asset that is “not readily realisable” to be transferred to a third party in consultation with stakeholders, The Economic Times reported. Creditors can also transfer debt due to them to a third party during the liquidation process to benefit creditors who may not be willing to wait for completion of the process.

It has almost been a year since troubled Dewan Housing Finance Corp. Ltd (DHFL) was thrust into insolvency proceedings—the first financial firm to be under the code, Mint reported. The committee of creditors has held 11 meetings so far and a 12th was on at the time of writing this piece. The latest meeting comes in the wake of a surprise bid for DHFL. An Adani Group company now wants to buy DHFL lock, stock and barrel for an amount higher than the highest bid of ₹31,000 crore made by Oaktree Capital so far, according to a Mint report.

Banks have been able to convince corporate borrowers to avoid applying for debt restructuring given that the “negative externalities" and aggregate debt recast are not expected to breach the ₹1-trillion mark, a State Bank of India report said on Wednesday, Mint reported. “In terms of numbers, assuming 15%-20% of the corporates had opted for moratorium, based on our earlier analysis, the restructuring amount originally envisaged was up to ₹7 trillion," Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economic adviser, SBI said in the SBI Ecowrap report.

The insolvency law committee and a group of ministers are considering various amendments to the four-year-old Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), some of which are likely to be introduced in the upcoming Winter Session of Parliament, a senior government official told Business Standard, Business Standard reported.

India is neglecting bank recapitalisation as it focuses on debt moratoriums and interest waivers for borrowers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a former central bank official told Reuters on Monday, Reuters reported. Indian banks are saddled with over $120 billion in bad debt, and in severely stressed conditions the bad-loan ratio could nearly double by March, according to Reserve Bank of India projections. Restoring banks’ capital is critical for aiding a meaningful recovery, but there has been little focus on the matter, former RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya said.

India’s Jet Airways would be acquired by an investor consortium under a multi-million dollar resolution plan approved by the carrier’s creditors on Saturday, Reuters reported. The plan submitted by a consortium of London-based Kalrock Capital and UAE-based businessman Murari Lal Jalan comes after months of talks over the airline’s future and was confirmed in a regulatory filing, which gave no details of the deal. A source close to the situation said the new owners had agreed to pump in 10 billion rupees ($136 million) as working capital for the revival of the airline.

AirAsia Group Bhd. has stopped funding its Indian affiliate as the global travel slump leaves the Malaysian group struggling to support a sprawling empire of no-frills airlines, people familiar with the matter said, Bloomberg News reported. AirAsia India Ltd.’s future may now depend on Indian conglomerate Tata Group, its majority shareholder, which has provided emergency funding but has yet to commit to a full rescue, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing a confidential matter. The airline isn’t at any immediate risk of folding, the people said.