A pandemic-exacerbated surge in Thai bad loans to nine-year highs and the end of a debt payment holiday are prompting buyers of distressed debt to embark on a shopping spree in Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy, Reuters reported. About 6.89 trillion baht ($221 billion) of outstanding Thai debt - or 42% of total lending - has been under relief programmes that include payment deferment and reduction, interest rate reduction and restructuring. The most significant of these - a government-mandated six month debt payment holiday - ended on Thursday.

The economic crisis brought about by the COVID-19 outbreak has hit state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the energy, transportation and infrastructure sectors, a top government official has said, The Jakarta Post reported. Deputy SOEs Minister Kartika “Tiko” Wirjoatmodjo said SOEs in the energy sector, such as electricity giant PLN and oil and gas company Pertamina, had suffered severe losses amid low demand during the health crisis.

Bad news for AirAsia X customers as they cannot claim any refunds or credits from the airline as it undergoes a restructuring process after being hit hard by the pandemic, The Rakyat Post reported. According to the AirAsia X support site, the airline has submitted an application for a debt restructuring to the High Court of Kuala Lumpur and customers have been listed as scheme creditors as part of that process. Additionally, credit account applications, flight changes and Unlimited Pass holders are also affected.

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) that are facing insolvency shouldn’t be subject to the same rules as other businesses, the Law Council of Australia said. The peak body of Australia’s legal profession said that Australia should move away from a one-size-fits-all approach under the Corporations Act of 2001, CRN reported. The Law Council said it was supporting Treasury’s draft exposure bill, which provides an alternative regime that allow SMBs to restructure, or transition to liquidation in a more cost-effective way.

The Joint Standing Committee on Commerce, Industry and Banking (JSCCIB) will spend three months monitoring the debt restructuring progress of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), on a case-by-case basis, after the Bank of Thailand's debt relief measures in the second phase expire tomorrow, the Bangkok Post reported. Though the central bank will not prolong debt relief measures, the regulator encourages financial institutions to help borrowers who cannot pay debt normally to enter debt restructuring.

Turkish banks suspended a plan to create an asset-management firm to take over their problematic debt in a bet that they’d be better off recovering some of the loans themselves rather than unloading them at a discount, Bloomberg News reported. Lenders are reluctant to sell non-performing loans for less than what they’re worth when they can restructure the borrowings and collect what is owed, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified because the matter is sensitive. The plan can be revived if there’s another economic shock, the people said.

There is much to admire in China’s recovery. Between the second and third quarters, its economy expanded by 4.9 per cent. It is unique among the world’s largest economies in that the IMF expects it to avoid a contraction this year, the Financial Times reported. That owes much to Beijing’s success in stamping out Covid-19, along with the country’s manufacturing prowess. Yet, digging into the numbers, the picture is not quite as rosy as it may seem. Long before the pandemic, the world’s second-largest economy looked dangerously unbalanced.

India is neglecting bank recapitalisation as it focuses on debt moratoriums and interest waivers for borrowers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a former central bank official told Reuters on Monday, Reuters reported. Indian banks are saddled with over $120 billion in bad debt, and in severely stressed conditions the bad-loan ratio could nearly double by March, according to Reserve Bank of India projections. Restoring banks’ capital is critical for aiding a meaningful recovery, but there has been little focus on the matter, former RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya said.

The court-appointed manager for Ocean Tankers Pte Ltd has applied to the Singapore court to return most of the ships the company manages to the shipowners, as cash is running low and Ocean Tankers will not be able to maintain the fleet, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, Reuters reported. If successful, the move will allow Ocean Tankers, the chartering arm of embattled oil trader Hin Leong Pte Ltd, to resume its cash-generating business such as its oil lubricants business, for which a sales process is underway, the sources said.

India’s Jet Airways would be acquired by an investor consortium under a multi-million dollar resolution plan approved by the carrier’s creditors on Saturday, Reuters reported. The plan submitted by a consortium of London-based Kalrock Capital and UAE-based businessman Murari Lal Jalan comes after months of talks over the airline’s future and was confirmed in a regulatory filing, which gave no details of the deal. A source close to the situation said the new owners had agreed to pump in 10 billion rupees ($136 million) as working capital for the revival of the airline.