What made the tide turn in favour of the Adani group was the Covid-19 pandemic, which shut down airports the world over, including Mumbai. There was no cash flow and the firm started defaulting on salaries July onwards.
Finance ministry advises banks to invoke personal guarantees of all promoters whose companies have gone to NCLT for debt resolution.
The RBI rejection is a second blow to BoB - the lead bank of both companies -- after a Delhi high court order on August 18 stayed a move by BoB and the entire consortium of lenders to classify these accounts as fraud, restraining them from taking any other coercive action till the next hearing.
According to the plan made by the lenders and RIL, all Future group listed companies will be merged into Future Enterprises. RIL will then invest Rs 8,500 crore in the merged entity which will include the retail business.
As global economies contract because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the focus of most of the India Inc has now moved back to the home market where demand is expected to pick substantially from the coming festival season.
The scrutiny started when it came to the government's notice that Shelf Drilling, a company that operates one third of ONGC's contracted jackup rig and earns a revenue of close to $220,000 a day, has China Merchant Group as its single largest shareholder.
Besides the pandemic that resulted in higher interest rates, the default by Future Retail has dealt a blow to investor sentiment.
Before the pandemic hit the world and led to shutdowns, the company had received nearly half a dozen offers. But bidders are now withdrawing. They want to reassess the situation. They want to conserve cash and avoid acquisition.
Several airlines, hotels, travel and tourism companies are expected to move their applications for one-time restructuring as soon as the moratorium ends.
There is immense pressure on Biyani to go ahead with the RIL offer after FRL defaulted on its interest payments of Rs 100 crore on July 22.
Reliance Industries, which sold stake worth $21.7 billion in Jio Platforms, kept the league tables moving in spite of the pandemic.
'These are the people that have worked for you. These are the people who have served you all their careers. You send them out to live in the rain. Is that your definition of ethics when you treat your labour force that way?' the titan asks.
Bankers say debt resolution bills are coming high as resolution professionals are giving the human resources and audit/legal consulting to outside firms to plug all the loopholes.
The rating was downgraded despite 25 per cent held by stronger partner Indian Hotels, which operates the company's seven properties in India.
Together, the top 10 business groups reported a pre-tax loss of Rs 19,342 crore during the January-March 2020 quarter, as against a profit before tax of around Rs 48,500 crore in the year-ago period and Rs 39,600 crore during the December quarter. While Vedanta was the worst hit. others included Aditya Birla, Bharti, Adani, Mahindra, and Tata.
While the Hinduja brothers - Gopichand, Prakash, and Ashok Hinduja - did not indicate any move to begin talks with Vinoo Hinduja, top Indian lawyers said mediation would help both sides considering that the letter signed by the four brothers cannot trump other legal documents and challenge the validity of a registered will of SP Hinduja.
The first spending item on the chopping block is capital expenditure, followed by operating costs and overheads, including sales and marketing expenses.
With the State Bank of India moving the National Company Law Tribunal's Delhi bench to enforce the personal guarantees of Ambani, it will delay the recovery of dues by the Chinese banks which won a UK court order in May this year.
Though Google's investment is minuscule and will not move the needle, it will attract other investors to the company and be a morale booster. Pursuing Vodafone Idea would potentially pit Google against Facebook and an increasingly dominant Jio.
The dispute between RCom and Chinese banks led by ICBC started after Anil Ambani led company defaulted on its loans to Indian as well as Chinese banks. A British court on May 22 asked Ambani to pay nearly $717 million to three Chinese banks within 21 days.