Five years ago, India came up with a legal answer to its perennial economic challenge of rescuing the money stuck in zombie firms. Unlike China, which has the cushion of high savings, India’s inefficient use of limited domestic capital has meant a chronic inability to put its swelling ranks of youth to work. After toying with the idea for more than a decade, the solution New Delhi hit upon was a modern bankruptcy code.
The numbers have been a mixed bag. According to an analysis by REDD Intelligence, of the 4,300-plus stressed debtors that have been taken through the 2016 corporate insolvency law, 48% were liquidated, half of them under 314 days. Of the 13% that got sold to bidders, half exited bankruptcy in less than 425 days. These, as the REDD researchers note, aren’t bad outcomes, considering that wait times previously were five-years-plus.