RBI floats guidelines to revitalise distressed assets

28 Feb 2014 Evaluate

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued guidelines for revitalizing distressed assets by forming Joint Lenders’ Forum (JLF) and adoption of Corrective Action Plan (CAP) for operationalising the framework, the discussion paper was floated on December 18, 2013. The guidelines which includes measures such as accelerated provisioning, will become operational on the day when RBI comes out with its next Monetary policy Review i.e. April 1, 2014.

As per the guidelines, banks would be required to report credit information, including classification of an account to Central Repository of Information on Large Credits (CRILC), on all their borrowers having aggregate fund and non-fund based exposure of Rs 5 crore and above with them. Once the account has been reported by any of the lenders to CRILC, where principal or interest payment overdue between 61 days and 90 days, this should trigger a mandatorily formation of a committee to be called JLF, provided if the aggregate exposure (AE) of lenders in that account is over Rs 100 crore. All the lenders should formulate and sign an agreement incorporating the broad rules for the functioning of the JLF.

While JLF formation and subsequent corrective actions would be mandatory in accounts having AE of Rs 100 crore and above, in other cases also the lenders would have to monitor the asset quality closely and take corrective action for effective resolution as deemed to be appropriate. For accounts with exposure of less than Rs 500 crore, the restructuring package should be approved by the JLF and conveyed by the lenders to the borrower within the next 15 days for implementation.

The basic rationale for restructuring would be that the shareholders bear the first loss rather than the debt holders. With this in view and also to ensure more ‘skin in the game’ of promoters, the RBI suggested JLF/CDR to consider several options, including the possibility of transferring equity of the company by the promoters to the lenders “to compensate for their sacrifices” when a loan is restructured. The Apex Bank suggested infusion of more equity into their companies by promoters and transfer of their holdings to a security trustee or an escrow arrangement till the turnaround of the company, which could enable a change in management control. However, for accounts with AE of Rs.500 crore and above, the techno-economic viability study and restructuring package would have to be subjected to an evaluation by an independent evaluation committee (IEC) of experts, which would be required to give its recommendation in these cases to the JLF within 30 days.

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