India

In a remarkable warning to India’s elite, the nation’s top court said it will put one of the country’s most prominent business executives behind bars unless his group pays its dues, Bloomberg News reported. It’s the latest twist in a dispute that helped push billionaire Anil Ambani’s mobile-phone carrier into bankruptcy proceedings and cast an unflattering light on the Indian mogul, who’s the younger brother of Asia’s richest man.

Debt-ravaged Jet Airways India Ltd., the country’s biggest full-service airline, is selling a majority stake for 1 rupee -- a little more than 1 U.S. cent, Bloomberg News reported. It’s part of a bailout plan by its state-owned lenders that will give the airline time to arrange fresh equity. The complicated arrangement is on track to be voted through on Feb. 21, in what would represent the rescue of one of the country’s most visible companies at a sensitive time, with India’s general election just weeks away. It’s consistently been one of India’s top three airlines in the past decade.

India should kick-start private investment via policy measures or tax breaks if it does not want to stay stuck at a 7 percent growth rate, Uday Kotak, managing director and chief executive of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd, told CNBCTV18 in an interview, Reuters reported. “India has the fundamental capacity and we need to create a situation where the ground capacity will be growing at somewhere between 8 and 9 percent,” he said on the sidelines of an event organised by Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd.

ArcelorMittal SA, the world’s biggest steelmaker, has bid 48 billion rupees ($673 million) to acquire Essar’s 1200 megawatt power plant in central India, one of the most prized assets in the debt-ridden group’s power portfolio, Reuters reported. The bid for the power plant once again pits ArcelorMittal chief Lakshmi Mittal against the Ruia family, who are already fighting to prevent their flagship steel asset from falling into the hands of the global steel giant.

Lenders to Jet Airways India Ltd. proposed a bailout of the beleaguered carrier, potentially paving the way for a revival of the airline that was on the verge of collapse, Bloomberg News reported. Mumbai-based Jet Airways, which needs 85 billion rupees ($1.2 billion) to help it get back on its feet, will be revamped, with banks becoming the biggest shareholders of the company, according to a filing Thursday. The restructuring would involve a mix of debt-to-equity swap, new capital infusion and asset sales, the company said, without elaborating.

Prathap C. Reddy and his family, founders of India’s Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd., plan to sell their holdings in an insurance venture with Munich Re AG to repay debt, people with knowledge of the matter said. The family is seeking to sell its entire holding of 41 percent in Apollo Munich Health Insurance Co., for about 12 billion rupees ($170 million) in six months, the people said asking not to be identified as the discussions are private, Bloomberg News reported.

Indiabulls Asset Management and DHFL Pramerica Mutual Fund have seen their assets plunge by more than half in the December quarter. That shows fears of India’s non-bank finance companies still linger, Bloomberg News reported. The dwindling in assets is the most among any mutual-fund company in India during the period, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

The Ruia family, mounting one legal battle after another to thwart Essar Steel Ltd.’s insolvency resolution, faces a fresh setback. Lenders to the Essar Group’s power companies have filed recovery cases to invoke personal guarantees provided by the promoters, two people aware of the development told BloombergQuint. Private lender ICICI Bank Ltd., and state-run IDBI Bank Ltd. moved various benches of the debt recovery tribunal, the people said without willing to be identified as they are not authorised to speak to the media. ICICI Bank Ltd.

The benchmark equity gauge of India’s 50 biggest companies reclaimed the 11,000 level after four months on Wednesday, but not all investors are celebrating. Only a handful of stocks, including Reliance Industries Ltd. and software exporters Infosys Ltd. and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. have driven the gains in the NSE Nifty 50 Index since the year started, Bloomberg News reported. What’s more, about 40 percent of the gauge’s members are trading below their prices from three months ago, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Just a year ago, India’s third-largest mortgage lender was bragging about how it had shrunk its financing costs by replacing bank loans with market borrowings, a Bloomberg View reported. Now, Dewan Housing Finance Corp. is confronting the fallout of that seemingly clever strategy, one that many of its peers face as well: a dangerously high exposure to India’s struggling developers. At the end of March 2018, Dewan had brought its cost of funds down to 8.4 percent, a reduction of almost 2 percentage points in three years.