New banks loans in China likely fell in October due to a seasonal lull but were still well ahead of historical trends as policymakers urge lenders to keep cash-starved firms afloat as the economy slows, a Reuters poll showed. Banks likely extended 862 billion yuan ($196.56 billion) in net new yuan loans in October, a traditionally weaker month due to long holidays, according to the poll, which surveyed 32 analysts, Reuters reported.

Toshiba Corp. said Thursday it would liquidate its U.K. nuclear business and sell its U.S. natural-gas business, taking a combined loss of nearly $1 billion. The moves are intended to clear away legacy problems after Toshiba went through waves of restructuring in the past three years that included the bankruptcy of its former Westinghouse Electric business in the U.S., The Wall Street Journal reported. The U.K. business—NuGeneration Ltd., known as NuGen—had sought to build what was planned as Europe’s largest new nuclear project in northwest England.

UniCredit SpA Chief Executive Officer Jean-Pierre Mustier’s turnaround plans hit a last-minute hurdle after the bank cut key targets and took a charge related to its Turkish bank, Bloomberg News reported. The lender surprised investors with an 850 million-euro ($972 million) charge to revalue Istanbul-based Yapi Kredi Bankasi AS and said it’s increasing funds to cover a potential settlement related to U.S. sanctions over Iran. The Milan-based bank also lowered targets for revenue and a key measure of financial strength this year and next, while keeping its 2019 profit target intact.

First came the sweeping government pronouncements. Then the flurry of actions, all aimed at shoring up China’s capital markets and rescuing struggling private companies. But are they working? Weeks into China’s latest campaign to support the world’s worst-performing major stock market and address record defaults, there have been some successes: equities are far less volatile and more companies are selling debt at a lower cost, Bloomberg News reported.

Essar Steel India sought a liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo on an online trading platform this week, three industry sources said on Thursday, Reuters reported. The company, a unit of Indian commodity conglomerate Essar Group, was seeking a cargo on a delivered ex-ship (DES) basis for delivery into Dahej over Dec. 28-29, the sources said. It sought a cargo through LNG trading marketplace Global LNG Exchange (GLX) on Wednesday but did not attract any offers, one of the sources said.

A leading Turkish carpet maker whose rugs adorn the floors of Istanbul’s luxury hotels and the region’s biggest mosque has filed for bankruptcy, Ahval reported. Avşar Halı was awarded bankruptcy protection by a court in Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey, the city where it is based, Sözcü newspaper reported on Wednesday. The firm has supplied carpets to five-star hotels in Istanbul such as the Ritz Carlton, Shangri-La Bosporus and the Hilton. Its rugs also furnish the floors of Çamlıca Mosque, the largest in Asia Minor, which opened in 2016.

Toshiba is set to liquidate UK nuclear arm NuGen, according to people familiar with the company, dealing a hammer blow to plans to build a new plant at Moorside in Cumbria. The Japanese conglomerate, whose board is meeting on Thursday, is almost certain to take the decision to wind up NuGen after all avenues to sell the unit were exhausted, the Financial Times reported. “It is 80 per cent likely that Toshiba will decide at the board meeting to wind it up,” a source close to NuGen told the Financial Times.

In the span of just 11 months, China went from having no distressed dollar-denominated corporate bonds to having more than any other emerging market, Bloomberg News reported. The world’s second-biggest economy has 15 bonds whose option-adjusted spreads over U.S. Treasuries were above 1,000 basis points as of Nov. 6, according to a Bloomberg Barclays index. That’s more than all the other nations combined. An ongoing trade war and slower economic growth after years of breakneck expansion are straining the nation’s highly-leveraged corporate sector.

Chinese brokerages are boosting capital to protect against a market plunge that threatens the value of $640 billion worth of shares pledged as collateral. Securities firms have extended more than a third of China’s stock-backed loans, which may go sour and force lenders to offload the shares, Bloomberg News reported. To cushion themselves, at least three of the country’s biggest brokerages have announced capital raising plans in recent months, joining the nation’s big banks in strengthening buffers.

A rescue plan drawn up by Turkey’s Ministry of Treasury and Finance would allow construction and real estate companies to offload unsold stock while channeling most proceeds toward repaying the country’s wobbly banks, Bloomberg News reported. Two associations of Turkish builders, known as Inder and Gyoder, have asked members to present an inventory of unsold real estate to a government-backed property investment trust Emlak Konut.