Blackstone Money Awaited in India to Avert Shadow Lender Default

(Bloomberg) -- Investors in rupee corporate bonds are waiting to see whether a major Indian shadow lender will repay 1.25 billion rupees ($18 million) of bond payments due this month, and help avoid a further worsening in sentiment in the nation’s credit markets.

Dewan Housing Finance Corp. is already behind schedule in meeting debt obligations as it missed paying 9.6 billion rupees of interest that was due on Tuesday on bonds, a company official said, adding that the debt would be serviced in the next seven days. The home financier is expected to get money from Blackstone Group LP on Monday from a previously agreed group unit sale.

That will help the lender repay obligations during the so-called cure period of seven days, and also other maturities that will be up for redemption.

Timely repayment by Dewan Housing will help allay wariness in the nation’s credit markets, where infrastructure financier IL&FS Group’s default last year has prompted investors to stay away from debt of shadow lenders. The funding crunch in the shadow banking sector could weigh further on Indian economic growth, which has already slowed to a five-year low, as borrowers find it harder to raise cash.

Shares of Dewan Housing slid 13.5% as of 2:12 p.m. in Mumbai on Friday, taking this week’s drop to 27%, the second-biggest decline on the S&P BSE 200 Index.

Credit market stakeholders will be watching out for following payments for Dewan Housing.

--With assistance from Anto Antony.

To contact the reporters on this story: Divya Patil in Mumbai at dpatil7@bloomberg.net;Baiju Kalesh in Mumbai at bkalesh@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew Monahan at amonahan@bloomberg.net, Ken McCallum, Finbarr Flynn

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.