India’s central bank has found that Yes Bank under-reported bad loans in the most recent financial year by Rs32.8bn ($457m), renewing scrutiny of the lender’s finances as it seeks to raise capital from global investors. Yes Bank reported late on Monday that the Reserve Bank of India had uncovered the discrepancy in its accounts. The RBI found in both 2016 and 2017 that Yes Bank, which has grown rapidly since it was established in 2004, had under-reported its non-performing loans.
(Bloomberg) -- India’s central bank has unearthed more than $450 million in extra bad loans at Yes Bank Ltd., the lender that is contending with a shadow-banking crisis and concerns over soured debt and capital.Gross non-performing assets assessed by the Reserve Bank of India were 32.77 billion rupees ($457 million) higher than Yes Bank had disclosed as of March 31, the Mumbai-based lender said Tuesday. The bank has already classified 12.59 billion rupees of the divergence as bad loans as on Sept. 30, it said.An earlier dispute with the central bank over Yes Bank’s reporting of bad debts ...
India's state-run banks reported fraud worth 958 billion rupees ($13.3 billion) from April to end-September of this year, the country's finance minister said on Tuesday, as the government struggles to help banks recoup losses. State banks reported 5,743 cases of fraud in the period, most of which had taken place over the last several years, although 1,000 cases worth 25 billion rupees had just taken place, Nirmala Sitharaman told the upper house of parliament. State Bank of India reported fraud of 254 billion rupees followed by Punjab National Bank of 108 billion rupees and Bank of Baroda ...
(Bloomberg) -- Shares of Vodafone Idea Ltd. and rival Bharti Airtel Ltd. rallied after the wireless carriers said they planned to raise tariffs starting next month, the first increase since the entry of billionaire Mukesh Ambani into India’s telecommunications market in 2016 triggered a price war.Vodafone Idea surged as much as 30% in Mumbai on Tuesday, while Bharti Airtel rallied as much as 6.6%. Reliance Industries Ltd.’s shares rose more than 3% to a record on optimism Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. will also benefit from higher tariffs. “Mobile data charges in India are by far the cheapest in ...
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Two- and-a-half years after the Indian central bank took the highly unusual step of directing banks to put 12 large corporate debtors into bankruptcy, the most closely watched of the “distressed dozen” cases has finally been resolved.With the Supreme Court in New Delhi clearing the decks for the sale of Essar Steel India Ltd., the Ruia family has accepted defeat. Control of the 10 million-tons-a-year integrated plant in western India will pass to ArcelorMittal, which will pay banks 420 billion rupees ($5.9 billion), or 90% of their claims.This final episode of a ...
The bidding deadline for Anil Ambani’s collapsed Indian telecoms group Reliance Communications has been extended after companies including his elder brother Mukesh’s Reliance Industries asked administrators for more time. Offers from two creditors, US-based private equity firm Varde Partners and local telecoms rival Bharti Airtel, have already been submitted and remain sealed, while Reliance Industries and UV, a little-known asset reconstruction company, are expected to submit theirs by the new date, according to people familiar with the matter. One member of the creditors’ committee, which ...
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- For Kumar Mangalam Birla’s textile-to-telecom empire, adversity is a 100-year-old companion. In 1919, when the Indian businessman’s great-grandfather wanted to start a jute mill, the dominant British firm, Andrew Yule & Co., bought all the surrounding Calcutta land. The Imperial Bank, the forerunner of today’s State Bank of India, initially refused Birla a loan.(1)The government of post-independence India stymied the Birla conglomerate with kindness. Soviet-style planning and state socialism protected the family’s legacy licensed firms by keeping competition out. But ...
(Bloomberg) -- India’s Yes Bank Ltd., the world’s worst-performing bank share in 2019, has posted the globe’s biggest gain over the past month.Its shares have rallied about 74% -- the biggest gain among global peers valued at more than $1 billion -- in the last one month after embattled founder Rana Kapoor was forced to sell his holdings in October and a new management team promised fresh capital and lower bad loans. The surge helped pare the annual loss in the Mumbai-based lender’s shares to 60%.Yes Bank rose 6% as of 3:21 p.m. in Mumbai on Monday, the biggest gainer on the benchmark S&P BSE ...
(Bloomberg) -- Three Chinese banks are suing the brother of Asia’s richest man in a London court for failing to pay back $680 million in defaulted loans.The Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China agreed to loan $925.2 million to Anil Ambani’s firm Reliance Communications Ltd. in 2012 on condition that he provide a personal guarantee, ICBC’s lawyer Bankim Thanki told the court. Some repayments were made by the wireless carrier but in February 2017, it defaulted on its payment obligations.The embattled Indian tycoon says that while ...
India's cabinet has approved 100 billion rupees ($1.4 billion) for a fund to help clear stalled housing projects, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said late on Wednesday. Sitharaman said the State Bank of India (SBI) and state-run insurance company Life Corporation of India will contribute an additional 150 billion rupees, taking the total size of the fund to 250 billion. The real estate sector in India has been hit by a severe liquidity crunch this year after a series of debt defaults by non-banking finance companies, also known as shadow lenders.
Moody's Investors Service has today placed Yes Bank Limited's foreign currency issuer rating of Ba3 under review for downgrade. Moody's has also placed the bank's long-term foreign and local currency bank deposit ratings of Ba3, foreign currency senior unsecured MTN program rating of (P)Ba3, and Baseline Credit Assessment (BCA) and adjusted BCA of b1, long-term Counterparty Risk Assessment (CR Assessment) of Ba2(cr) and long-term domestic and foreign currency counterparty risk rating (CRR) of Ba2 under review for downgrade.
(Bloomberg) -- India won’t back down from collecting $13 billion of past dues from debt-laden telecom carriers because the industry is not under stress, a government official with knowledge of the matter said, a move that could deepen Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Vodafone Idea Ltd.’s financial woes.India expects the carriers to pay up within 90 days as ordered by the Supreme Court last month, the official said, asking not to be identified, as the discussions are private. A panel of top bureaucrats could look at deferred payment plan for some of the dues, the person said.The government’s stand about ...
