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.

India’s shadow banks, which lend to everyone from teashop merchants to property tycoons, get a mixed bill of health in Bloomberg’s latest check, Bloomberg News reported. The sector has been stung by a crisis set off by the shock collapse of non-bank lender IL&FS group in 2018. There’ve been even more setbacks in recent weeks: Altico Capital India Ltd., a real estate-focused lender, has seen some potential rescuers demur. Revitalization of the industry, whose woes mounted last year when major mortgage lender Dewan Housing Finance Corp.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has ordered insolvency resolution process against a company, in probably the first such case in India where the petitioner that approached the bankruptcy court alleging payment default is a firm that had earlier provided it services on insolvency resolution, The Economic Times reported.

Religare Finvest Ltd., an Indian financier sanctioned by the nation’s central bank, is “hopeful” of revamping 58.5 billion rupees ($815 million) of debt by March, the shadow lender said, Bloomberg News reported. Religare is in talks with its creditors to retain 51% of the obligations as that can be serviced by the company’s cash flows, while tagging the rest as “unsustainable debt,” the company said in an emailed statement on Wednesday. The firm expects to pay the principal on the “unsustainable” loans over a period of time, Religare said without giving a time frame.

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.