The time is ripe for a merger of eight fund houses indirectly owned and controlled by the central government, says N Sundaresha Subramanian.
The government has merged the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) with the finance ministry to give it a better control over state-owned firms and facilitate its ambitious privatisation programme. Finance ministry will now have six departments while DPE's hereto parent ministry, the ministry of heavy industries and public enterprises will now be called the ministry of heavy industries. Previously, the disinvestment ministry - created under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government - was merged with the finance ministry and is now a department under it. Also, Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) was abolished and administration of foreign investments was given to the finance ministry (FinMin).
Less than a month after five financial institutions sold 20 per cent in the National Stock Exchange, a consortium of five stakeholders led by State Bank of India are looking to sell an 11 per cent stake in the exchange.
UBI's exposure to Kingfisher Airlines was around Rs 350 crore (Rs 3.50 billion) as part of consortium led by State Bank of India.
Jaypee Infratech's financial creditors on Monday deferred the voting process on Suraksha group's offer to acquire the realty firm and will decide later this week whether bids of Suraksha group as well as NBCC should be considered again. Days after NBCC strongly objected to the Committee of Creditors (CoC) rejecting its offer and also questioned the jurisdiction of Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) Anuj Jain, the creditors held a meeting to discuss NBCC's addendum to its existing offer. The CoC, at its meeting on Monday, decided to conduct voting on May 27-28 on whether both contenders -- Suraksha group and NBCC -- should be allowed to submit their resolution plans for Jaypee Infratech Ltd (JIL), which went into insolvency proceedings in 2017.
The judge said the assets of the respondent company cannot be left under the control of UBHL and could be handed over to official liquidator to achieve the winding up process s per the law.
In a ruling in May, a UK high court judge had refused to overturn a worldwide order freezing Mallya's assets and upheld an Indian court's ruling that the consortium of 13 Indian banks were entitled to recover funds amounting to nearly 1.145 billion pounds.
India's five leading wilful defaulters are Winsome Diamonds & Jewellery Ltd and associate Forever Precious Jewellery & Diamonds, Zoom Developers, Kingfisher Airlines, Beta Naphthol and Raza Textiles
Over 25,600 cases of banking fraud reported up to December 21, 2017, says Minister RS Prasad.
First case filed after new norms come into force, NCLT admits plea.
The consortium led by SBI has also initiated the process of recovery.
Ratnagiri Gas & Power Pvt Ltd, in charge of Dabhol assets since 2005, has admitted it is passing through a difficult phase in the absence of gas allocation and low recovery of dues from the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company.
Once these banks start showing losses, they will not be able to pay dividends to the government nor pay taxes, which will further aggravate the situation for the government as its return on investment as an investor would be very negligible for the next few years, says M V Subramanian.
RBI had asked banks to price fixed rate loans of up to three years based on marginal cost of funds from April 1
The court ruled that an interim debt order in favour of SBI and other banks seeking access to funds in the Mallya's ICICI UK bank account "should remain in force" but the application to make it final should be adjourned until after the hearing of his pending bankruptcy petition.
Bankers have hailed the Prime Minister's call to end "financial untouchability" and opened millions of accounts on the inaugural day itself.
The 17-lender consortium, led by State Bank of India had put on auction the property with a reserve price of Rs 115 crore, which was 15% less than the second auction of the property held in August
The divestment process, however, will not be an easy affair as there are multiple stakeholders, including the employee unions, whose concerns will have to be addressed.
Judge Andrew Henshaw refused to overturn a worldwide order freezing Mallya's assets and upheld an Indian court's ruling that a consortium of 13 Indian banks were entitled to recover funds amounting to nearly $1.55 billion.
The Ethics Committee of Rajya Sabha headed by veteran Congress leader Karan Singh, decided to give Mallya one week time to explain his conduct.
Half a dozen stocks from the large-cap universe and over two dozen from the mid-cap universe have been replaced.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Rs 30,600 crore government guarantee for the bad bank has changed the body language of bankers for the better, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Despite gold prices hitting record highs, analysts aren't gung-ho about the outlook for gold financiers Muthoot Finance and Manappuram Finance. This, they said, was due to intense competition from banks, coupled with stagnating loan books and likely pressure on margins.
SBI has the highest exposure of Rs 1,600 crore to the beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines.
The value of transactions through debit and credit cards used at the PoS fell to Rs 64,200 cr in February
If there were an Olympics for bank frauds in India, Rishi Agarwal, founder and former chairman of ABG Shipyard Ltd, a nephew of the Ruia brothers of the Essar group, would bag the gold, pushing Nirav Modi to his right, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Heads of various public and private sector banks on Thursday sought to present a counter-narrative on RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das warning lenders about the perils of extreme risk aversion in the pandemic-stricken environment where credit demand is on the wane.
The government on Wednesday announced the appointment of veteran banker K V Kamath as chairperson of the newly set up Rs 20,000 crore development finance institution NaBFID to catalyse investment in the funds-starved infrastructure sector. Parliament had in March cleared the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) Bill 2021 to support the development of long-term non-recourse infrastructure financing in India, including the development of the bonds and derivatives markets necessary for infrastructure financing.
UB Group Chairman Vijay Mallya is no longer a member of India's 100 Richest club, even as fortunes of the country's uber-rich have seen a significant growth since last year.
After the August 10 deadline, South American conglomerate Synergy Group Corp reportedly evinced interest in the airline, forcing the RP to seek lenders' nod to extend the deadline to August 31. The Synergy Group owns a majority in Colombian carrier Avianca Holdings, which has a codeshare partnership with the state-run Air India.
Vijay Mallya left India on March 2, presumably for London.
Naresh Goyal-owned group companies, including the airline's general sales agent in India and abroad, and a car rental firm, are among those who have filed claims.
Industrial Development Bank of India will hire about 1,000 finance professionals over the next few months to meet business expansion needs and also bridge the skills and experience gaps resulting from attrition.
Mallya has lived on the edge for long enough to know that his extradition from UK is not a given, says N Sundaresha Subramanian.
The finance ministry is not in favour of providing further budgetary support to ailing IFCI, but is considering a proposal to restructure the oldest financial institution and then merge it with a major bank or FI other than IDBI.
Probe agency to set up special software to probe money trail in the case.
'Flush with funds, lending became a cash management exercise.' 'Road projects, power generation plants, airports etc were financed left and right with apparently no regard for the projects' ability to repay,' explains S Muralidharan, former managing director, BNP Paribas.
Given the pressure from India Inc and the banking fraternity, it is surmised that the portfolio rejig will take place before April.
