India

Jet Airways India Ltd., the Mumbai-based carrier trading at the lowest since June 2015 on deteriorating finances and rising default risk on its debt obligations, said it is servicing all its loans on time in spite of surging fuel prices, Bloomberg News reported. “We are regular in all our payment obligations to all our banks and statutory dues including provident fund obligations. Our account with all the banks as on date is standard,” the company said in an emailed statement on Saturday.

The chairman of one of India’s biggest state lenders has urged the government to give up appointing top bank executives, arguing the move would boost management standards in a crucial sector struggling to recover from a bad debt crisis, the Financial Times reported. “Through a random process, which has some combination of the individual’s choice and the government’s wisdom, people show up,” Ravi Venkatesan, chairman of Bank of Baroda, told the Financial Times. “You could have a gentleman from a small bank suddenly thrust into an executive director role at a large bank.

Indian tycoon Neeraj Singal has been arrested for allegedly siphoning off funds from Bhushan Steel, one of the biggest companies targeted under the country’s new bankruptcy act, the Financial Times reported. India’s Serious Fraud Investigation Office said late on Thursday that the businessman had been put in custody connected with “serious corporate fraud”. Mr Singal could not immediately be reached for comment.

Bonds that Reliance Communications Ltd. defaulted on last year slumped to a seven-month low on Tuesday, after the Indian mobile operator controlled by billionaire Anil Ambani offered to repay holders at a discount to the principal value, Bloomberg News reported. The firm, which is set to meet with bondholders on Aug. 10, has been trying to close a sale of wireless assets to Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. that would raise money to help pay creditors. Reliance Communications’ 2020 dollar notes fell 2 cents on the dollar to 43 cents as of 6:00 p.m.

India’s Supreme Court Tuesday refused to halt a lower court from hearing cash-strapped power producers seeking protection from bankruptcy proceedings, Bloomberg News reported. The verdict of the two-judge bench headed by Rohinton F. Nariman ensures that lenders won’t be able to initiate insolvency proceedings against power producers who may have defaulted on loan repayments unless they are categorized as wilful defaulters. Power producers had challenged Reserve Bank of India’s revised debt servicing rules, which they say can push nearly 75 gigawatts of projects into bankruptcy.

The Force India Formula One team will come out of administration after a rescue deal involving a consortium of investors led by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, administrators and management said in a statement on Tuesday. They said creditors would be paid in full and all 405 jobs at the Silverstone-based team, that was co-owned by embattled Indian businessman Vijay Mallya and finished fourth last year, were safe, Reuters reported. Stroll is the father of Williams Formula One driver Lance.

India's government seems intent on abandoning good ideas for dealing with the country's banking crisis and encouraging bad ones, a Bloomberg View reported. Perhaps that shouldn't be surprising, given that the bureaucrats don't yet seem to have grappled with the real nature of the problem. The latest terrible proposal for dealing with the bad loans weighing down India's state-owned banks, which control more than two-thirds of deposits, is to create a "bad bank" -- an asset-management company that would take stressed assets off their balance sheets.

The head of one of India’s largest state-run banks says the government needs to ease its grip over the lenders or risk slowly killing off the sector, Bloomberg News reported. Tight government control makes it hard to attract talent or take the tough decisions needed to address the bad debts weighing down the banks, according to Ravi Venkatesan, the outgoing chairman of Bank of Baroda.

State-owned carrier Air India has sought 21.21 billion rupees ($309 million) of additional equity from the government for the fiscal year 2018-19 to make pending payments to its vendors, a source at the airline told Reuters on Monday. Air India owes about 18 billion rupees to its vendors, including lessors and banks that have demanded payment from the beleaguered airline, after the government's unsuccessful efforts to find a buyer for its 76 percent stake, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Vijay Mallya’s Force India Formula One team has been put into administration after a court hearing in London on Friday, deputy principal Bob Fernley said. “An administrator was appointed by the court for Force India F1 this evening,” he confirmed to Reuters. The team’s chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer told reporters earlier that the team might have to enter some form of administration before it could emerge on a sounder financial footing, Reuters reported.