Source: Reuters/Ajay Verma An Indian girl walks on a rope during the Festival of Gardens in northern city of Chandigarh. A cash-strapped government, political and trade opposition and an extremely volatile equity capital market make the Indian Department of Disinvestment’s job of selling shares of state-owned companies a very challenging task. So, it is not an exaggeration to say that Ravi Mathur has done a good job of selling the Indian Government’s stakes in state-owned companies since takin

Source: Reuters/Ajay Verma A labourer stands outside a Tata Steel stockyard in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh. As the world economy plods towards a slow and protracted recovery, Tata Steel is finding salvation at home in India. It has been an eventful summer for Tata Steel. With a non-cash write-down of goodwill and assets to the tune of Rs 83.56bn (US$1.6bn), the company finally came close to a public admission of pricing and timing issues with its high-profile acquisition of Corus St

Source: Reuters/Punit Paranjpe Commuters wait as a train approaches a railway station in Mumbai. The South-East African nation of Mozambique may seem an unlikely setting for a ground-breaking shift in Indian financings. Two years ago, however, an oil-and-gas project in the Rovuma basin helped kick off a trend that has breathed new life into the offshore loan market. Videocon Industries, better known as a consumer electronics maker, turned to credit enhancement in June 2012, when it obtained stan

Source: Reuters/Babu Indian students hold special shields to view the annual solar eclipse over the southern Indian city of Chennai. India introduced a safety-net mechanism to bring back retail investors to the near-dead primary equity markets, but has not been able to test its efficacy as the economic slowdown is keeping away both issuers and investors. “It’s a mechanism that would have ideally provided some comfort to retail investors. However, currently primary markets like the secondary ma

Source: Reuters/Amit Dave Women hold umbrellas to protect themselves from a heavy rain shower as they stand at a bus stop in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. Offshore bond issues from India in 2013 are just US$1.45bn shy of last year’s record US$12bn, but the country’s well-documented macroeconomic challenges makes it far from certain that even that modest level will be reached. Low borrowing rates, the result of massive monetary stimuli in the world’s developed economies, made the global

Source: Reuters/Fayaz Kabli A man holds tweezers while repairing a watch at his workshop in Srinagar. State Bank of India, along with investment banking arm SBI Capital Markets, has been the world’s biggest arranger of project-finance loans each year since 2008. Volumes, however, are falling and others are catching up. Project financings in rupees totalled US$42.2bn-equivalent in 2011, US$19.8bn in 2012 and US$15bn so far in 2013, according to Thomson Reuters data. Shrinking loan volumes pose a

Source: Reuters/Sivaram V An employee works on his laptop at the Start-up Village in Kinfra High Tech Park in the southern Indian city of Kochi. Growing volumes in recent years have offered a hint of the potential for India’s domestic bond market, but investors believe the government needs to do more to promote this vital alternative to bank financing. The rupee bond market registered deals totalling US$29.3bn-equivalent in the year to September 4, according to Thomson Reuters data. That compare

Source: Reuters/Danish Ismail A motorcyclist from the Kashmir Police rides through a ring of fire during Independence Day celebrations in Srinagar. After a summer struggle to put a floor under the rupee, India has found there is no single solution to its crisis of confidence. While short-term measures can help restore stability and ensure the capital markets remain open, policymakers also need to address a number of structural problems if they are to convince the world that India is still an a

Source: Reuters/Babu Students make a formation of a tree during a programme to create awareness to save trees and forests. India’s central bank wants to introduce innovation and competition through new banks so as to breathe life into the country’s financial sector. It is a scheme that has worked before, but, as the economy stumbles, the regulator is not making it easy for potential lenders. Much of India’s modern private banking sector, including four of the current five most active lenders,

Source: Reuters/Jitendra Prakash A Hindu devotee lights an earthen lamp on the steps of Sindhiya Ghat during the Karthik Purnima and Dev Diwali festival in Varanasi. While India is no longer a sure bet on rapid growth rates, the world’s second most populated country is still home to sector-specific investment opportunities that offer value during periods of currency depreciation or low points in the business cycle. India’s recent macroeconomic woes are well documented. Since May, the rupee has

Source: Reuters/Jitendra Prakash Indian women plant rice plants in their field in Malaka, in the northern Indian city of Allahabad. This year’s India report comes at an especially challenging time for the world’s second most populous nation. The near-20% slump in the rupee is the most obvious symptom of the crisis of confidence buffeting the country, and also one that risks making things worse by eroding unhedged balance sheets and importing inflation. Comparisons with India’s balance-of-payment