Canara Bank hires ibanks for ₹3,500 crore share sale
SINGAPORE: State-owned Canara Bank has hired Edelweiss, Jefferies, ICICI Securities and SBI Capital for a share sale that could raise up to ₹3,500 crore ($552 million), two people with knowledge of the transaction said. The qualified institutional placement is likely to hit the market before March 31. Canara Bank said its board had approved the share sale on December 26. It is selling the shares to shore up its Tier 1 capital. India’s public sector banks are raising funds to bolster their balance sheets after a spike in non-performing loans. Canara reported gross bad loans at 10.51% of all lending at the end of September, down slightly from 10.56% three months earlier. MUMBAI: China Development Bank (CDB) on Friday withdrew its insolvency petition against Reliance Communications Ltd (Rcom). The decision follows the Anil Ambani-led telecom firm announcing a ₹39,000-crore asset monetisation plan to pare its debt last month.
The lawyer for CDB sought withdrawal of the case as against its dismissal to ensure that the Chinese lender can approach the court at a later date in case the asset monetisation plan does not succeed. “All this is dependent on the asset monetisation plan, which will take place by March,” he said. The lender also withdrew its case against Reliance Telecom Ltd, a subsidiary of Rcom.
The beleaguered telecom firm owes around $2 billion (₹12,680 crore today) to Chinese banks including CDB.
The total debt of Rcom as on October 30, 2017 stood at ₹45,000 crore, which it plans to bring down to ₹6,000 crore of “serviceable” debt.
In the last week of December, Ambani announced that Rcom has exited strategic debt restructuring, which was invoked by its lenders in June last year. He said that the company has arrived at a debt theweekendreview
TRAI SET TO RELEASE NEW RULES ON PRICING IN WAKE OF JIO DISPUTE
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is set to introduce within the next two weeks rules that will define whether a particular tariff announced by an operator is transparent, non-predatory and non-discriminatory or not, chairman R S Sharma said in an interview. “Transparency, nondiscrimination and non-predatory—these are three broad principles which have to be adhered to... what will be the hallmarks or attributes of such tariffs, that is what these principles will decide,” Sharma said.
The proposed regulations are expected to bring an end to the controversy started after the entry of Reliance Jio when the company announced a “welcome offer” giving free data and voice for three months starting September 5, 2016. Jio on December 1, 2016 announced the exten-
sion of these free services till March 31, 2017 under its “Happy New Year” offer.
GOVT TO LAUNCH NEW SAVINGS BONDS WITH 7.75% INTEREST
The government on Thursday announced the launch of new savings bonds, which will bear an interest of 7.75% and mature in seven years. Eligible investors such as individual and Hindu Undivided Families can buy 7.75% Savings (Taxable) Bonds, 2018 from January 10, a government release said. There is no maximum ceiling for investment into these bonds. The minimum issuance amount for these bonds is ₹1,000.
Accordingly, the cumulative value of the ₹1,000 investment will be ₹1,703 at the end of seven years. The interest of 7.75% per annum will be paid semi-annually. Interest on these bonds will be taxable under the Income Tax Act, 1961. However, bonds will be reduction plan that includes sale of its fibre, spectrum and tower network along with development of its real estate assets and equity injection by a global strategic partner.
Ambani also said that the lenders have received final binding bids and that the bidding process has been vetted by a committee chaired by S S Mundra, former deputy governor at the Reserve Bank of India. The panel had been appointed by the joint lenders forum.
While CDB, a financial creditor of Rcom, has withdrawn the case, the telecom operator’s operational creditor Ericsson India Pvt. Ltd is continuing its fight against the telco for nonpayment of dues.
On Friday, Ericsson argued that Rcom had defaulted on its payments despite rescheduling of the payment calendar multiple times. The case will be heard by the National Company Law Tribunal on January 18. The Swedish network equipment provider has filed a case against Rcom and two of its subsidiaries—reliance Telecom and Reliance Infratel Ltd.
According to the firm, Rcom and its subsidiaries together owe ₹1,154 crore to Ericsson.
Rcom, however, has raised certain objections with respect to discrepancies in the amount outstanding. exempted from wealth tax.
“The bonds are not tradable in the secondary market and are not eligible as collateral for loans from banking institutions, nonbanking financial companies,” the release said. These bonds replace earlier issued savings bonds which had an interest rate of 8%.
RBI TO ISSUE NEW ₹10 NOTES IN CHOCOLATE BROWN COLOUR
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will shortly issue new ₹10 notes under the Mahatma Gandhi series. The central bank has already printed around 1 billion pieces of the new ₹10 note, according to three people familiar with the matter.
With chocolate brown colour as the base, the new note will bear the picture of Konark Sun Temple. The design received the go-ahead from the government last week, said the two of the people cited earlier. The change in design in the old ₹10 note was last made in 2005. In August last year, RBI had introduced the new ₹200 and ₹50 notes under the Mahatma Gandhi series. An RBI spokesperson declined to comment. The move to reintroduce lower denomination notes in a new design comes after the government’s move to rework the currency mix in order to combat counterfeiting and promote a less-cash economy.
UIDAI DENIES ANY BREACH OF AADHAAR DATABASE
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Thursday clarified that there has not been any breach in the Aadhaar database and that the personal data of citizens, including biometric information, is safe and secure.
The clarification comes in response to a news report titled ‘₹500, 10 minutes, and you have access to a billion Aadhaar details’ published in
on Thursday.
The report claimed a Whatsapp group sold all Aadhaar data available with UIDAI for a sum of ₹500. UIDAI maintained that the reported case appeared to be an instance of misuse of the grievance redressal search facility. As UIDAI maintains complete logs and traceability of the facility, legal action against the persons involved in the case is being undertaken. UIDAI clarified in a press statement that displayed demographic information cannot be misused; it would need to be paired with an individual’s biometrics. There are above 1.19 billion Aadhaar card holders in India.
NEW IIMS, OTHER B-SCHOOLS SEE ROBUST START TO PLACEMENTS
Ahead of the final placements at top Indian Institutes of Manage- ment (IIMS), other leading business schools, including some new IIMS, have seen a good start to placements.
Some of them have placed their entire graduating batch within a few days. While international job offers have returned, consulting and analytics, marketing and financial sectors continue to be key job drivers.
“We have placed nearly 90% of the 170-odd students seeking jobs as of now, and as a young IIM, we are happy with offers both in terms of positions being offered and the average salary,” said Arkaprabha Sanyal, a graduating student at IIM Udaipur.
IIM Rohtak, too, has placed more than 75% of its graduating students, with a general increase in marketing and financial job offers.
The commerce ministry-run Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) said it has placed its entire batch of 288 management students within a week.