A debtor can pay 87 paise in the rupee, but if his creditors would take 20% of his debts, he could pay them and have Rs. 42 left. Calculate his debts and assets.
I don't understand the bold part of the sentence. Please help me to understand this question.
Given assets $a$ and debts $d$ (in rupees), the "87 paise in the rupee" $\implies a= 0.87d$
The "creditors would take 20% of his debt" alternative I interpret as $a= 0.8d+42$
Subtracting these gives $0.07d = 42$