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Almost everybody is waiting to see the end of 2020, the year when a virus brought our lives to a grinding halt. People lost lives, livelihoods and struggled to cope with unforeseen challenges. While the economy slowed down drastically, the Indian stock market seemed to cock a snook at the virulent virus. The Sensex soared from 41,253 on 31 December 2019 to 47,613 on 29 December 2020, giving a 15.4% return to those who made the right bets or simply sat still with their quality stocks.Â
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As people worked from home and discovered interest rates on bank term deposits sliding to a miserable 5.5%, they turned to the stock market in droves. Both depositories now report over 20 million depository participant (DP) accounts each the NSDL 20.7 million and CDSL 27.8 million. Even accounting for the fact that many investors have multiple DP accounts, over 1 million new accounts were added every month since the lock-down.Â
In latest letter, Kapil Wadhawan repeats his offer to repay Rs 91,000 crore to DHFL s creditors in 7-8 years
Wadhawan’s offer comes in the midst of ongoing CoC meetings to consider bids for DHFL including from Piramal Group and Oaktree.
DHFL (File Image: PTI)
Kapil Wadhawan, former promoter of Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL), has repeated his offer to pay the entire principal outstanding of Rs 91, 158 crore to creditors with an upfront payment of Rs 9,000 crore and remaining payment in 7-8 years in the form of debt-to-equity conversion.
In a letter written to DHFL administrator Subramaniakumar on December 19, Wadhawan said he is also willing to agree on a process for sale of DHFL Pramerica Life Insurance (DPLI) and any amount received from the sale will be utilised entirely for the purpose of repayment of the amounts due to the lenders. “This, I believe, would substantially increase the upfront amount that I am offering for repayment to all the lenders of DHFL,” Wadhaw
When Truth Is Stranger than Fiction, Rumours Are Easily Believed
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On 14th December, a hitherto unknown website, called scamsbreaking .com, stirred up a social media storm with stunning allegations about the Kolkata-headquartered SREI group that has a large footprint in infrastructure and finance. The allegation that made people sit up was that Axis Bank (mainly) had lent a stunning Rs44,000 crore to the group without adequate due diligence.
The report made waves because the SREI group is already under scrutiny with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) having ordered a special forensic audit of SREI Infrastructure Finance and its subsidiary SREI Equipment Finance on 22nd November.