Jindal Stainless Ltd., part of billionaire Savitri Jindal’s steel and power conglomerate, expects to leave behind its debt troubles by March, allowing it to boost its capacity by half over the following two years, Bloomberg News reported. India’s dominant stainless steel producer had been forced into a central bank-mandated restructuring after its debts piled up.
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ArcelorMittal SA said on Wednesday it would pay 74.69 billion rupees ($1.01 billion) to creditors of two Indian companies in which it previously held stakes, in order to make its acquisition offer valid for Essar Steel, another debt-ridden Indian steel firm, Reuters reported. ArcelorMittal will clear overdue debt of steel firm Uttam Galva Steels and oil and gas pipeline construction services provider KSS Petron, two companies in which the world’s largest steelmaker held stakes until earlier this year.
India’s Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS) said the country’s appellate company law tribunal has passed an interim order granting a moratorium on all creditor actions against the company and its units, providing some relief to the debt-laden firm, Reuters reported. The move will preserve the value of the group’s assets and also help the new IL&FS board in its effort to evaluate and prepare a resolution plan, IL&FS said in a statement on Monday.
KKR & Co is seeking to acquire assets from stressed Indian shadow lenders, as it tries to take advantage of the market disruption after a rare money market default by Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd., Bloomberg News reported. The private equity firm’s two Indian credit units may spend as much as 20 billion rupees ($270 million) combined to purchase portfolios from local non-banking finance companies, Sanjay Nayar, KKR’s India chief executive officer, said in an phone interview Friday. KKR is also seeking outright acquisitions of Indian non-bank lenders and
The bankruptcy court has decided to entertain a plea by Videocon Group founder Venugopal Dhoot seeking to consolidate separate insolvency proceedings initiated by lenders led by State Bank of India against 15 of his companies under a single court, the Economic Times reported. National Company Law Tribunal’s (NCLT) principal bench in New Delhi on Thursday admitted Dhoot’s plea and sought a reply from SBI by October 24. The country’s top bank and other lenders had filed separate proceedings against Videocon companies in different courts during June-September to recover Rs 2
The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) has narrowed on five arms of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) that may have been involved in fund diversion and mismanagement, the Economic Times reported on Wednesday. Indian government took control of the debt-laden IL&FS last week after defaults on a string of debt obligations triggered wider concerns about risks in the country’s financial sector, Reuters reported.
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Top lender State Bank of India said on Tuesday it is stepping up its target to buy “good quality” asset portfolios from non-banking financial companies (NBFC), Reuters reported. India’s NBFC sector has been in the spotlight after IL&FS, a major infrastructure financing and construction company, defaulted on a string of debt obligations in recent weeks triggering wider concerns about risks in the country’s financial sector. SBI said it believes that there is a “good opportunity” to expand its loan portfolio at “attractive rates”.
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Investors in Indian equity funds held tight and even bought more last month, seemingly unfazed by the selloff triggered by a tumbling currency and a crisis at a troubled lender, Bloomberg News reported. Stock funds took in 111 billion rupees ($1.5 billion) in September, the most since May, up from 83 billion rupees in August, data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India show.
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Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd. is missing more debt obligations, even as the Indian government pledged to prevent further defaults, underscoring the challenges its new board faces in fixing the firm’s mounting debt problems, Bloomberg News reported. IL&FS failed to service principal and interest on loans from banks, inter-corporate deposit and commercial papers totaling 339 million rupees ($4.6 million) due for the period from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4, it said in an exchange filing.
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India’s top court has set new norms for the country’s bankruptcy law in an attempt to speed up the resolution of billions of dollars worth of soured loans weighing down banks, Bloomberg News reported. The Supreme Court on Thursday set mandatory timelines for the various stages of the insolvency resolution process, which the law says must be concluded in 270 days, and imposed restrictions on when and why the process can be appealed or stalled.
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