Billionaires Are Facing a Corporate Debt Reckoning in India
- Lodha, Piramal, Mistry amongst billionaires hurt by the crisis
- Acute credit troubles and realty slump seen as reasons for hit
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Indian tycoons including Ajay Piramal and Pallonji Mistry are grappling with a prolonged realty slump that’s adding to the shadow banking crisis, showing that even the nation’s richest can’t escape widening cracks in the debt market.
Ratings of some companies in the conglomerates run by billionaires Piramal and Mistry have been cut as the business environment worsened and funding costs rose. Rating companies also raised doubts about the debt repayment capabilities of a developer controlled by the nation’s richest property tycoon, and president of Bharatiya Janata Party’s Mumbai unit, Mangal Prabhat Lodha.