Zombie firms are rising again in India

It’s a struggle: A mobile phone user in Hyderabad, India. Vodafone Idea has long-term liabilities of more than US$27bil, most of which are the wireless carrier’s deferred payment obligations to the government for spectrum. Millions of customers are deserting the service every quarter. — Bloomberg

THE living dead are rising once again.

After a temporary decline between 2016 and 2019, corporate zombification has once again been on an upward trend globally, says a recent study by Bruno Albuquerque and Roshan Iyer at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).