India

India’s billionaire Ambani brothers have overcome their famously testy relationship to agree a telecom infrastructure deal that will further expand the footprint of disruptive new entrant Reliance Jio, the Financial Times reported. The two brothers became direct competitors for the first time last year when Mukesh Ambani’s Jio launched a price war on consumer telecom incumbents including Reliance Communications, run by his younger brother Anil Ambani.

India’s billionaire Ambani brothers have agreed a telecoms infrastructure deal that will expand the footprint of disruptive new entrant Reliance Jio and give rival Reliance Communications a path back from the brink of insolvency, the Financial Times reported. Jio, a subsidiary of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, has squeezed Indian mobile industry margins with aggressive pricing over the past year.

Tata Steel Ltd. has sounded out banks about raising the equivalent of $5.1 billion through loan facilities and a bond issue to help refinance debt, Bloomberg News reported. The Indian steelmaker plans a $2.15 billion six-year syndicated facility to refinance loans in the books of units, TS Global Holdings Pte. and NatSteel Asia Pte. The new borrowing will mark Tata Steel’s return to the international loan markets for the first time since the middle of 2016 as it sharpens its focus on the Indian market after selling unprofitable assets in the U.K.

Indian telecom company Reliance Communications unveiled a plan to reduce its debt burden by selling off assets to re-position itself as a niche operator targeting business customers, sending its shares soaring to a three-month high, The National reported. Anil Ambani, the company’s chairman, announced on Monday that the operator would sell-off telecom towers, spectrum, optical fibre and land, to reduce its debt to 60 billion rupees (Dh3.4bn) from its current level of 450bn rupees.Rcom shares yesterday ended the day up more than 30 percent following the announcement.

Surging steel prices and a new Indian insolvency law have set the stage for an industry-defining battle between tycoons and producers for more than $26 billion of the sector’s most-coveted assets, Bloomberg News reported. Creditors are seeking the approval of India’s new bankruptcy court to sell assets of as many as 40 firms, including steel producers. That’s spurred Lakshmi Mittal, head of the world’s largest maker of the alloy, and fellow billionaire Anil Agarwal to vie for control of Essar Steel India Ltd., according to people with knowledge of the matter. Debt-laden Bhushan Steel Ltd.

A public-relations firm became the latest company to ask an Indian tribunal to place billionaire Anil Ambani-run Reliance Communications Ltd. under insolvency proceedings after the unprofitable mobile-phone operator failed to pay its dues, Bloomberg News reported. Fortuna Public Relations Pvt. placed its request with the Mumbai bench of National Company Law Tribunal on Monday, saying Reliance Communications owes it 4.3 million rupees ($67,000). The NCLT plans to hear the case on Dec. 19.

An Indian overseeing committee has approved a proposal submitted by a group of lenders, led by State Bank of India, to restructure an 82.85 billion rupees ($1.3 billion) debt of Bajaj Hindusthan Sugar Ltd, Bloomberg News reported. As per the plan, the company’s debt of 47.89 billion rupees will be considered as “sustainable”, while the rest will be treated as “unsustainable”, India’s top sugar maker said in a statement to stock exchanges on Friday. A loan is considered as sustainable when a company is able to service it from its cash flow.

Moves to sort out India’s $207 billion of bad loans may have eased one threat hanging over executives of state-owned banks: the danger they could be thrown in jail if a future generation of politicians in New Delhi decides they have sold off assets on the cheap. That’s because the new bankruptcy courts set up by the government to handle troubled companies create a transparent process for pricing the assets and writing down their loans, according to P K Gupta, a managing director of State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, Bloomberg News reported.

India’s Reliance Communications Ltd., which earlier this month defaulted on dollar notes, told bondholders that they would be treated the same as bank lenders in terms of their ability to recover funds, according to Citigroup Inc. The mobile phone operator controlled by billionaire Anil Ambani, whose failure to pay interest on the dollar notes comes as a high-profile test of India’s new bankruptcy laws, held the call Monday, Citigroup said in a note to clients dated Nov. 28.

According to one of India’s most respected bankers, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity -- a mammoth sale of distressed assets, some $40 billion in the first round, Bloomberg News reported in a commentary. Much could go wrong, of course, especially given that so many powerful interests have so much money at stake in the process. Fortunately, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, which has stumbled in some of its biggest policy moves recently, appears to be handling this particular challenge with both agility and a sense of urgency.