The Reserve Bank of India would prefer a market-led resolution to the nation’s simmering shadow banking crisis, Governor Shaktikanta Das said, dashing hopes for bailouts in the struggling sector, Bloomberg News reported. “We are monitoring the top 50 non-bank finance companies, which account for 70%-75% of the sector loans outstanding,” Das said at the Bloomberg India Economic Forum in Mumbai late Thursday.
Reliance Capital Ltd.’s downgrade to default grade at Care Ratings Ltd. places the debt of embattled tycoon Anil Ambani’s conglomerate at risk, reigniting India’s credit scare, Bloomberg News reported. Mumbai-based Care cut Reliance Capital’s bonds by eight notches to D from BB, citing a delay in coupon payments on several of the lender’s non-convertible debentures, the rating company said in a Sept. 20 statement. Reliance Capital group’s debt stood at about $5 billion as of September, according to a company’s spokesman.
The introduction of GST has been described as India’s biggest tax reform, and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) is a landmark contemporary law that has just begun to be assessed for efficacy, The Financial Express reported. While GST subsumed various indirect tax payments into one, reducing the compliance burden on the taxpayers, IBC reduced the number of days needed to liquidate a company. IBC is also expected to resolve the prevailing non-performing asset crisis, which would positively impact availability of bank credit in the long term.
The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has initiated corporate insolvency resolution process against Sana Realtors under Section 7 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016, ETRealty reported. The court has appointed Sudhir Kumar Agarwal as the interim resolution professional (IRP) for the case. The court directed the IRP to make public announcement. The buyer had booked four apartments in Sana Realtors' Precision Soho Towers, situated in Sector 67, Gurugram in August 2010 for Rs 48.30 lakh.
One of India’s top shadow financiers by assets is betting that central bank easing will bring an end to the nation’s prolonged credit crisis, even as fresh strains in the sector emerged this week, Bloomberg News reported. “Interest-rate cuts and infusion of liquidity by the RBI will give a boost to the bond markets and aid the credit market to return to normalcy by December,” Rashesh Shah, chairman of Edelweiss Financial Services Ltd., said in an interview from the company’s steel-and-glass headquarters in Mumbai.
A plan to rescue India’s debt-laden Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd (DHFL) has hit a major roadblock as only a small segment of bondholders has agreed to be on board the proposed resolution, according to a custodian of DHFL bonds, Reuters reported. The process has been further complicated as certain bondholders have also initiated a process to take DHFL to bankruptcy court, the custodian added.
India’s fragile financial system is swinging between despair and hope. Two separate incidents — both featuring the lender Yes Bank Ltd. — recently underscored the drag of past underwriting follies as well as the lift from a digital reset, a Bloomberg View reported. It will take time, but good things will come to Indian banking as a result of the present crisis. Start with the sudden default by financier Altico Capital India Ltd. on a 199.7-million-rupee ($2.8-million) interest payment to Dubai-based Mashreqbank PSC.
Global investors are starting to fall out of love with Narendra Modi. After pouring $45 billion into India’s stock market over the past six years on hopes that Modi would unleash the country’s economic potential, international money managers are now unwinding those wagers at the fastest pace on record, Bloomberg News reported. They’ve sold $4.5 billion of Indian shares since June, on course for the biggest quarterly exodus since at least 1999.
A unit of Reliance Communications Ltd., Anil Ambani’s distressed telecom firm, has filed for bankruptcy protection. GCX Ltd., which owns the world’s largest private undersea cable system, is the latest company owned by the tycoon to stumble, Bloomberg News reported. The former billionaire’s Reliance Communications itself fell back into bankruptcy earlier this year. The move by subsidiary GCX comes after it missed payment on its $350 million of 7% bonds that matured on Aug. 1.