India

Bharati Shipyard Ltd. said its board has approved restructuring INR28.54 billion ($538.2 million) of its INR32.50 billion debt, a move that will help it cut interest costs, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The company has been struggling with mounting debt on its books after acquiring a majority stake in Great Offshore Ltd. two years ago, as a slowdown in Europe and lower demand in India also impacted its business.

India's lower house of Parliament passed a historic anticorruption bill yesterday, 42 years after one was first demanded, regaining the initiative in a months-long national debate over the pervasiveness of graft, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The bill will have to be passed by the upper house to become law, but it upsets the dynamics of a bitter battle that has played out in the past year between the government and anticorruption activist Anna Hazare.

The Japanese and Indian governments agreed Wednesday to set up a three-year, $15 billion bilateral-currency swap line in an effort to buttress their economies against Europe's sovereign debt crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The new swap line - five times that of the previous arrangement that expired in early summer - follows a Japan-South Korea deal in October to boost their bilateral swap pact to $70 billion from $13 billion. The moves signal spreading doubts among Asian economic powerhouses about the ability of European leaders to fix their problems anytime soon.

Indian companies have a record $11.4 billion of dollar-denominated bonds to repay in 2012 just as the rupee falls to an all-time low and borrowing costs in the U.S. currency exceed all but one of Asia’s markets. Companies have more than double the debt coming due next year compared with a five-year average of $5.6 billion, while ICICI Bank Ltd. and Bank of Baroda have the most maturing debt, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Banks have no plans to carry out a second round of debt restructuring of the ailing Kingfisher Airlines which has an outstanding loan of around Rs 6,419 crore, Parliament was informed Sunday, The Economic Times reported. "State Bank of India, leader of the consortium (of 11 lenders to Kingfisher), has stated that at present, there is no plan," Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena said in a written reply in Lok Sabha. He was replying to a question on whether lenders are planning to carry out a second round of restructuring of loans to help Kingfisher.

A consortium of 26 lenders to Air India Ltd. has broadly approved a plan to restructure 180 billion rupees ($3.45 billion) debt for the loss-making carrier, an aviation ministry official said Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The turnaround plan includes converting some loans into equity, restructuring some at lower interest rates and elongating the repayment tenure for the rest. It was prepared by the state-run carrier in consultation with the government and its consultant SBI Capital Markets Ltd. and recently got approval from the country's central bank.

Airplane-leasing companies are preparing to repossess planes from India's Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. if the troubled carrier's finances deteriorate further, said an executive at one of the companies, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported. The executive said that at least two lessors have agents at Kingfisher's offices copying documents relating to their planes. These agents also are monitoring the debt-laden airline's planes to ensure that parts aren't removed in ways that violate lease terms.

India's rupee fell to a record, prompting the central bank to say it is weighing action to stem the worst performance in Asia this year, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The rupee weakened 0.3 percent to 52.3225 per dollar in Mumbai, bringing its decline in 2011 to 14.6 percent. The BSE India Sensitive Index (SENSEX) of shares tumbled 22 percent in the period as investors sold emerging market assets on concern the U.S. and Europe will struggle to curb deficits.

The focus of media coverage of the last week has been squarely on Kingfisher Airlines (KFA), when the cancellation of a 40-odd flights on a single day, a number that eventually exceeded 80, triggering shock waves in business and consumer circles, the Business Standard reported today.

The Reserve Bank of India has warned of deep imbalances in the country’s banking system saying that capital is being allocated to a handful of elite industrialists but not to the broader, more dynamic economy. Such a constrained banking system in a large emerging market threatens to put a major drag on economic growth, according to the RBI and economists. It also poses a social threat in an economy that needs to create millions of jobs among a young population. K.C.