Shares in Chinese retailer Suning.Com Co Ltd hit a more than 10-year low, amid lingering worries over its liquidity condition despite efforts by the company to shore up investor confidence, Reuters reported. The stock fell as much as 7.5% to 8.03 yuan in early morning trade, its lowest since November 2014, having dropped nearly 20% this year. The retreat came after shareholders of Suning Holdings Group, which owns a 3.98% stake in Suning.Com, pledged all of the group’s shares to Alibaba’s Taobao (China) Software Co., Ltd on Dec.

Markets are showing mounting concern about Sri Lanka’s ability to manage debt loads, amid financial deterioration that sparked a downgrade deeper into junk Friday, Bloomberg News reported. Prices of the country’s dollar bonds show that while traders expect securities next year to be repaid, they’re increasingly uneasy about dwindling cash reserves for debt bills down the line. Notes due in 2021 are indicated at about 88 cents on the dollar, according to prices compiled by Bloomberg. That’s a level that shows some misgivings yet not alarm.

Chinese government entities responsible for funding hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure projects are struggling to raise cash after a series of defaults by state groups rocked the country’s credit markets, the Financial Times reported. Executives from several local government finance vehicles (LGFVs) have told the Financial Times that they have abandoned bond sales or loan applications after debt-saddled state-owned enterprises, led by Yongcheng Coal & Electricity Holding Group, defaulted in November. Other LGFVs are paying much higher rates of interest to borrow.

Banks have sought the Reserve Bank of India’s permission to keep accounts of borrowers who are eligible for relief under the August 6 circular in a standstill until the date of invocation of restructuring, multiple people aware of the talks told CNBC-TV18. The Indian Banks Association wrote to RBI on behalf of banks on Wednesday, requesting the regulator to allow standstill status for eligible borrowers, said people in the know, CNBC-TV18 reported.

China’s Unigroup International Holdings Ltd said Thursday that it was unable to repay a maturing $450 million bond by a Dec. 10 deadline, triggering cross defaults on dollar bonds worth an additional $2 billion, Reuters reported. In a statement on the website of the Hong Kong stock exchange, Unigroup International said neither it nor its guarantor Tsinghua Unigroup International Co Ltd would be able to make the principal or the final interest payment on the maturing bond.

South Korean household borrowing from banks and brokerages grew at record pace in November fueled by retail investors borrowing to buy stocks in a bull market that stands 90% higher than lows struck in March, Reuters reported. Bank lending to households for mortgages, stocks and living expenses in November was up by 13.6 trillion won ($12.54 billion) from October, in another big monthly rise that added to record levels of household debt despite fresh curbs on loans introduced by regulators last month.

A top Chinese chipmaker’s deepening bond crisis is sending a fresh signal that Beijing is willing to let ailing state-linked firms fail in order to instill stronger financial discipline into a recovering economy, Bloomberg News reported. Tsinghua Unigroup Co. said it won’t be able to repay the principal on a $450 million dollar bond due Thursday, which would trigger cross defaults on a further $2 billion of debt. This would be the company’s first dollar bond repayment failure and came after it defaulted on a 1.3 billion yuan ($199 million) local bond last month.

Even as the Committee of Creditor (CoC) is likely to decide within a week on Videocon Industries promoter Venugopal Dhoot's offer of Rs 31,289 crore for withdrawal of insolvency proceedings against 15 of his group companies, the question that will remain in creditors' mind is how he would fund this offer, Business Today reported. In an interaction with Business Today, Venugopal Dhoot says that they plan to raise the money from monetisation of assets, affordable housing, consumer electronics and home appliances business.

Investors are cooling on debt from riskier Chinese companies after missed payments by state-backed firms have cast doubt on the reliability of government support, The Wall Street Journal reported. The wariness has helped push new borrowing costs for these businesses to their highest levels in nearly two years, marring what has been a banner year for debt issuance. In November, corporations with below triple-A credit ratings paid an average 5.89% coupon for stock-exchange listed debt, according to Wind, the highest since January 2019. In contrast, triple-A coupon rates fell to 4.09%.

Virgin Australia said on Wednesday it had restructured its order for Boeing Co 737 MAX planes, reducing the number on order to 25 from 48 and delaying the first deliveries by two years to mid-2023, Reuters reported. Australia’s second-biggest airline, now owned by U.S. private equity group Bain Capital, said in a statement it would take 25 of the largest variant, the 737 MAX 10, but not the 23 smaller 737 MAX 8s it had ordered previously. Bain’s purchase of Virgin closed last month, allowing the airline to exit from voluntary administration, Australia’s closest equivalent to U.S.