It's the most absurd, bizarre and unfunniest movie ever, complains Moumita Bhattacharjee.
The change in ownership is expected to give a fresh lease of life to the company that has often been dragged by financial stress in its close to three-decade journey under the Khaitans, reports Ishita Ayan Dutt.
Many would have racked up debt this Diwali, using credit cards and consumer loans. Here are a few simple steps on how to fix your financial mess, says Bindisha Sarang.
Reserve Bank on Wednesday announced a slew of measures including loan restructuring for individual and small businesses hit hard by fresh COVID-19 wave. To augment supply of goods for COVID care, the central bank opened Rs 50,000 crore on-tap window to ease access to emergency health services to boost provision of immediate liquidity for ramping up COVID-19 related healthcare infrastructure and services in the country. This liquidity window is being opened till March 31, 2022, he said, adding that under the scheme, banks can provide fresh lending support to a wide ranging of entities including vaccine manufacturers, importers and suppliers of vaccine and medical devices, hospitals and dispensaries and suppliers of oxygen and ventilators importers and also patients for treatment.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has completely halted production and new orders, exporters say that payments have also been delayed for the shipments sent before the lockdown. Exporters say some customers are not taking delivery of the shipments because they have shut shop. Ready-made garment players had been hoping for a revival in demand in China but with the virus spreading to Europe, the US and other major markets, there are no orders coming from the major retailers.
'I was in China and when they learnt I had made Disco Dancer, they started singing Jimmy Jimmy, Aaja Aaja.'
Yes Securities, the broking and investment arm of Yes Bank, on Wednesday said the Supreme Court directive on loan moratorium due to pandemic has brought the much needed clarity and there will not be any financial impact on the banks as the compound interest waiver is to be reimbursed by the government. On its verdict on a batch of pleas seeking moratorium extension beyond August 31, 2020, the apex court on Tuesday said it is a policy decision, refusing to interfere with the Centre's and RBI's decision to not extend the loan moratorium beyond the limit. However, it observed that the benefit of moratorium should go to all set of borrowers irrespective of the loan amount and asked to refund any amount collected as penal interest and compound interest during March-August 2020.
Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) CEO Ravinder Takkar did some plain speaking. In an analyst call after its quarterly results recently, Takkar said that the main stumbling block to raising fresh capital from investors is "pricing" - telecom tariffs, in other words. Nine months ago, the telecom company's board had cleared a proposal for raising Rs 25,000 crore from investors, after the promoters made it clear that they were not ready to pump in more money. But potential investors are concerned that without clarity on tariff hikes (there have been none for more than 18 months) they might just lose their money. The lack of visibility on raising tariffs has also impelled VIL to request the Department of Telecom (DoT) for a fresh reprieve by extending the two-year moratorium on paying its spectrum instalment of Rs 8,200 crore for another year till FY23.
The protocol aims to "democratise" lending, reduce costs of credit, and ensure accessibility of credit to small companies and street vendors, according to Nandan Nilekani.
A lot depends on how Srei shapes up under the new administrator and his team, which is critical for investors' interest.
For a borrower, who has serviced his loan without missing any repayment, the banks will be willing to take over the loan, give a top-up, and would offer lower interest rates, says Tinesh Bhasin.
Debt-ridden mortgage firm DHFL's shares would be delisted from stock exchanges post acquisition by Piramal Capital and Housing Finance, which has emerged as the successful bidder for the company. As part of resolution process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), lenders led by Union Bank of India in January this year favoured the bid by Piramal Capital and Housing Finance to take over the beleaguered housing finance firm. According to sources, shares of DHFL would be delisted post acquisition as per the IBC guidelines and Sebi delisting norms.
Today pay-later services are available for practically anything under the sun. And these include small purchases like clothes, gadgets, movie tickets, and even food.
Embattled retailer Future Retail Ltd (FRL) on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court to avert insolvency proceedings over missing a loan repayment deadline, even as its independent directors rejected an Amazon-supported offer to sell the company businesses at less than a third of what Mukesh Ambani's Reliance is offering. India's second-largest retailer, which operates multi-brand retail chains such as Big Bazaar, Easyday and Heritage, failed to pay Rs 3,494.56 crore to lenders by the due date of December-end and sought a 30-day grace period to resolve the situation. Unable to find money, it moved the apex court seeking to restrain its lenders from declaring the company a defaulter, which can invite initiation of insolvency proceedings.
Mall owners have incurred a loss of around Rs 3,000 crore during the ongoing second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic over the last eight weeks due to lockdowns and restrictions imposed by various states across the country. In the wake of the second pandemic wave, around 25 per cent of the business of the retail side across categories has been lost and this is going to impact the mall owners as well, according to Shopping Centres Association of India (SCAI) Chairman Mukesh Kumar. However, mall owners would go ahead and complete their under-construction projects as they anticipate demands for commercial and office space once the pandemic recedes, the SCAI said.
With many getting payment reminders, confusion prevails among borrowers, term-plan investors and credit cardholders over the implementation of the three-month moratorium on all loan repayments amid disruptions caused by the coronavirus outbreak. As part of measures to alleviate hardships faced by people, the Reserve Bank of India, on March 27, announced a slew of steps, including a three-month moratorium on loan repayments.
For automakers, the festive season is about raking it in through ramped up sales and attractive consumer offers. However, despite the robust demand, what may spoil the party this year is a global shortage of semiconductors.
Lenders had filed 1,251 cases to recover Rs 24,765.5 crore. Wilful defaulters are the entities that do not pay back money despite the ability to do so. Defaulters above Rs 1 crore were considered for this exercise.
The Insolvencies and Companies Court of London high court on Monday declared fugitive business baron Vijay Mallya a bankrupt person as per UK laws. Legal experts explain what this means for 65-year old Mallya's personal liberties, his legal battle against extradition to India to face trial, and for the consortium of Indian lenders - at whose behest the bankruptcy proceedings were initiated in the UK courts.
The stimulus package announced by the government for the revival of the pandemic-hit economy has been found to be "inadequate", according to a Parliamentary panel report. The report of the department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector has noted that in the process of economic recovery post-first wave of the pandemic, the second wave has even more vigorously ripped the economy particularly the MSME sector. "The committee observes that the stimulus package announced by the government for the economic revival from the pandemic hit economy has been found to be inadequate as the measures adopted were more of loan offering and long-term measures instead of improving the cash flow to generate demand as immediate relief," it said.
In a meeting on Thursday evening, the RCom management, led by CEO Punit Garg, requested the bank representatives to release Rs 260 crore it received as I-T refund so that it could repay the dues to Ericsson.
Allaying investors' fears, Franklin Templeton AMC has said Sebi's order prohibiting the company from launching new debt funds will have no bearing on existing schemes managed by it. Sebi on Monday barred Franklin Templeton Asset Management (India) from launching any new debt scheme for two years and imposed a penalty of Rs 5 crore for violating regulatory norms in the case of winding up of six debt schemes in 2020. Also, it has been asked to refund investment management and advisory fees of over Rs 512 crore (including interest) collected with respect to the six debt schemes. This amount will be used to repay unitholders, as per Sebi order.
The Centre on Tuesday permitted 20 states to raise Rs 68,825 crore through open market borrowings to bridge the GST revenue shortfall.
As per Western Union's study on overseas education, 22 per cent students prefer new and unconventional study destinations such as Ireland, Turkey and Spain.
On November 12, 2021, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decided to ring in uniformity in asset classification and income recognition across all lending institutions. Shadow banks, or non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), like commercial banks, are to test non-performing assets (NPAs) on a daily basis and upgrade them to "standard assets" only when interest and principal arrears are settled by borrowers. This is going to create all manner of headaches for shadow banks and their clientele. Says Y S Chakravarti, managing director and chief executive officer (CEO), Shriram City Union Finance: "NPA levels will go up, especially of small borrowers.
Attributing the delay in debt servicing to a liquidity crisis, the company said its total indebtedness was Rs 518 crore.
It is intriguing that the CBI has shown little interest in the most scandalous and biggest collective investment scheme ever, from the Sahara group, asserts Debashis Basu.
Debt-ridden Reliance Capital ready to cede control in home finance - Blackstone, Carlyle, Brookfield, and Piramal group are in talks to buy a large stake in Reliance Home Finance.
Axis Bank and ICICI Bank consumed 37-59 per cent of their operating profit for COVID-19 provisioning, while the figure is 24 per cent in case of Kotak Mahindra Bank and 10-12 per cent for IndusInd Bank and HDFC Bank.
The IL&FS group has a complicated structure, with the holding company owning stakes in its financial services arm as well as the subsidiaries that operate its infrastructure assets.
The sale proceeds will be fully utilised to repay debt at Bharti Telecom and will make the promoter holding firm a 'debt free company'.
Axis Bank was the top laggard in the Sensex pack, plunging more than 5 per cent, followed by HDFC, Bajaj Finance, ICICI Bank, Tata Steel, Bajaj Auto, HDFC Bank and IndusInd Bank. On the other hand, M&M, Infosys, Asian Paints, UltraTech Cement and Tech Mahindra were among the gainers.
The protests brought home the fact that the Sri Lankan public is in no mood for halfway measures, as voices against Rajapaksa 'family rule' and 'securitisation' of the civilian administration began sidestepping the more critical economic crisis, affecting the nation and afflicting the individual, observes Sri Lanka watcher N Sathiya Moorthy.
India's foreign exchange reserves showed a dip for the first time in several weeks after the government repaid $3.04 billion of loans in advance to multilateral agencies in the last week of February.
Secured credit cards offer benefits similar to regular credit cards and hence an applicant should try and get a card with lower fees and more features, suggests Sarbajeet K Sen.
Amid an increase in localised lockdowns across the country, Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday said there is no need for a loan repayments moratorium at present, stating that businesses are better prepared to face the situation. It can be noted that the RBI had announced a six-month moratorium in the early days of the national lockdown last year to help borrowers impacted by a chilling in economic activity. The entire state of Maharashtra is in a lockdown for non-essential services and localised and night lockdowns are being observed in many pockets of the country, including the national capital, to restrict the surge in cases.
New norms are in place to strengthen regulations for this set of lenders which has been playing a critical role in Asia's third largest economy, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The earlier resolution allowing these developers to charge higher power tariffs, now stands cancelled.
For any airline to be eligible for restructuring, the current ratio has to be equal to or higher than 0.4, while 'debt to Ebitda' has to be equal to or less than 5.5.