When India’s billionaire Ruia brothers went looking for loans to expand their steel-to-power empire around the turn of the decade, Standard Chartered Plc stepped up. Some five years later, the $2.5 billion Standard Chartered lent to the Ruias’ Essar conglomerate is among debts the London-based bank isn’t certain it’ll recover, according to people with knowledge of the matter. About $5 billion of advances Standard Chartered made to Indian borrowers have been internally classified as at risk of defaulting, in addition to the $1 billion of onshore loans that have already become non-performing in India, the people said. India, Standard Chartered’s biggest profit contributor as recently as 2010,...
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