India will suspend all domestic flights from midnight Tuesday, the final piece of a nationwide lockdown that threatens Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attempts to revive an economy already expanding at the slowest pace in more than a decade, Bloomberg News reported. The open-ended flight ban compliments a nationwide cancellation of all passenger trains, as authorities try to halt the spread of the coronavirus in the world’s second-most populous nation, and one which has poorly equipped hospitals and inadequate social security.
Resources Per Country
- Afghanistan
- Armenia
- Australia
- Azerbaijan
- Bangladesh
- Bhutan
- Brunei
- Cambodia
- China
- Cook Islands
- Cyprus
- Fiji
- Georgia
- Hong Kong
- India
- Indonesia
- Japan
- Kazakhstan
- Kyrgyzstan
- Laos
- Macau
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Micronesia
- Mongolia
- Myanmar
- Nepal
- New Zealand
- North Korea
- Pakistan
- Papua New Guinea
- Philippines
- Singapore
- South Korea
- Sri Lanka
- Taiwan
- Tajikistan
- Thailand
- Turkey
- Turkmenistan
- Uzbekistan
- Vanuatu
- Vietnam
Property developers across India’s big cities have been asked to ensure their laborers have enough to eat, even though construction may have halted under a government-imposed lockdown to fight the coronavirus outbreak, Bloomberg News reported. The Hiranandani Group has organized 15 days of food rations for more than 4,000 laborers across sites. Oberoi Realty Ltd. will continue to pay its staff, and Boman Irani, vice president at the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India, said large contracting companies, such as Larsen & Toubro Ltd.
Turkish banks on Monday offered customers some relief from debt repayments and pledged more cash, the latest steps in the campaign to limit the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak, Bloomberg News reported. State lenders including Ziraat Bank, Halkbank and Vakifbank allowed clients to postpone repaying debt by three months. Banks also pledged to restructure existing loans to give companies grace periods of as long as 12 months when they aren’t required to make any payments.
“Mate, I’m terrified.” “All we need is for two big jobs, two major corporates to go under and there will be a run of people putting themselves into administration. It's a domino effect." The coronavirus pandemic swept through corporate Australia this week at a ferocious pace, forcing a string of companies to pull their financial forecasts and triggering steep share price falls, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Was that it? Markets’ reaction to the Bank of Japan’s unscheduled monetary policy moves last week in response to the coronavirus outbreak was a swift and highly negative dismissal of the actions taken as inadequate to the challenge posed, the Financial Times reported in a commentary.
Singapore’s most high-profile restructuring case has attracted a new offer from a Spanish company, adding more uncertainty to a drawn-out process that’s left many retail investors in the lurch, Bloomberg News reported. Water treatment firm Hyflux Ltd. said in an exchange filing that FCC Aqualia SA, which is also in the water management business, plans a potential transaction involving it or its assets, without giving details. Hyflux investors have already been evaluating two different takeover offers and one debt-purchase plan.
In a related story, Bloomberg News reported that OneWeb, the satellite operator backed by SoftBank Group Corp., is mulling a possible bankruptcy filing to address a cash crunch as it grapples with high costs and stiff competition, according to people with knowledge of the preparations. The company is considering seeking court protection even as it continues to review possible out-of-court alternatives, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing private company plans. OneWeb would be among the first SoftBank-backed companies to file for bankruptcy.
SoftBank Group Corp. shares plummeted the most on record, adding to steep declines earlier this month as investors grow concerned about the Japanese company’s debt load and investments with markets in tumult, Bloomberg News reported. The stock dropped 17% Thursday, the worst decline since founder Masayoshi Son first listed his company in 1994. SoftBank has tumbled about 50% in just the past month, erasing as much as $50 billion in market value. The Japanese billionaire is struggling to reassure investors about the stability of his empire amid fallout from the coronavirus.
Banks from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and India risk losing millions of dollars due to their exposure to Finablr Plc, the foreign-exchange operator that’s preparing for potential insolvency, according to people with knowledge of the matter, Bloomberg News reported. Qatar National Bank, Doha Bank, National Bank of Fujairah, Commercial Bank International and Bank of Baroda are still owed about $300 million by Finablr’s parent BRS Ventures, which is owned by Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty, some of the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private.
India’s top court ruled out a reassessment of $19 billion in past dues to be paid by telecom companies, a move that could send indebted carrier Vodafone Idea Ltd. into bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. A three-judge panel, headed by Justice Arun Mishra, said it will consider a proposal by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration seeking a 20-year payment plan for dues worth 1.4 trillion rupees. The years-long case centers around the dispute between the government and mobile carriers over how license and spectrum fees are calculated.