China Development Bank withdraws insolvency petition against RCom

China Development Bank (CDB), the biggest foreign lender to India's Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom), on Friday withdrew a petition seeking to drag the indebted telecoms carrier into insolvency.

A lawyer for CDB told the National Company Law Tribunal that the Chinese bank had filed to withdraw the petition. The tribunal allowed CDB's plea to go forward.

CDB, which is owed around $2 billion along with two other Chinese banks, had filed the petition in November seeking insolvency proceedings against RCom, saying a large amount of loan principal and interest payments was overdue.

After RCom's debt-reduction plan, including an asset sale to Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, was announced last week, CDB told Reuters that it was in talks with RCom.

Details of the terms of a possible settlement between the Chinese bank and RCom were not immediately known. By 0847 GMT, RCom shares were trading 4.2 percent higher in a Mumbai market that was up 0.4 percent.

Last week, RCom signed a deal to sell most of its wireless assets to Jio in a deal people familiar with the matter said was worth nearly 240 billion rupees ($3.8 billion), subject to final adjustments at the time the transaction closes.