Asia Pacific

Administrators have moved to sell assets owned by companies belonging to federal MP Clive Palmer, including a Bombardier Global Express aircraft that is the property of Palmer Aviation, which owes $26 million, ABC News reported. Creditors of Mr Palmer's aviation company met yesterday in Sydney and decided to put it into liquidation. Liquidators FTI Consulting said the process would start in March. "At that meeting, creditors resolved to place the company into liquidation, with FTI Consulting to act as liquidators," an FTI statement confirmed.

Even by the standards of the Chinese financial system, the volume of funding provided by the People’s Bank of China to the banks in the run-up to the Chinese new year holiday was large. FT Confidential Research (FTCR), a research service from the Financial Times, estimates that a net Rmb2.7tn ($415bn) was pumped into the interbank market in January alone, including more than Rmb1tn through open market operations.

Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP, Southeast Asia’s largest law firm, reckons the region’s rising bond defaults will inflict as much pain on creditors as the financial crises of 2008 and 1998, Bloomberg News reported. As distress spreads from shipping to mining and retail to construction industries, the law firm said in an interview that recovery rates will be similar to those seen in the global credit meltdown and Asian financial crisis.

Global bitcoin exchange Kraken said on Wednesday significant progress has been made in the investigation into claims of creditors of bankrupt exchange MtGox, Reuters reported. In 2014, MtGox Co Ltd, a Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange, was forced to file for bankruptcy after hackers stole an estimated $650 million worth of customer bitcoins. Kraken was appointed in November of that year to assist Tokyo district court-appointed trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi in the bankruptcy investigation of missing bitcoins, receiving claims and distributing remaining assets to creditors of MtGox.

India’s place as an emerging market bright spot is under threat from simmering troubles in a banking system weighed down by bad loans, the Financial Times reported. The signs of distress are clear. Last week, Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan warned Indian lenders to brace for a year of “deep surgery” as a balance sheet clean-up began. Shares in state-backed banks, which control roughly three quarters of assets, have plunged. Financial results have been brutal too.

China’s central bank will increase the frequency of its money supply operations, with immediate effect, in a move to ensure there is ample liquidity in the banking system amid unprecedented capital outflow, the Financial Times reported. The People’s Bank of China is facing a tricky balancing act as it attempts to lower financing costs to support economic growth without resorting to heavy-handed monetary easing that could fuel capital flight.

Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd. still lacked the necessary support from creditors for its offshore restructuring plan as of Sunday, said Tam Lai Ling, the Chinese developer’s senior adviser, Bloomberg News reported. Kaisa needs approval from investors holding 75 percent of its offshore bonds and loans for its plan to restructure debt to proceed. The firm has received no less than 53 percent as of Feb. 14, Tam said by phone. The developer had offered a consent fee of 0.5 percent for investors who supported the plan as of that date, after paying 1 percent for those who consented as of Jan. 24.

India’s central bank governor Raghuram Rajan has warned that the country must brace for more than a year of “deep surgery” to repair its damaged banking system, raising fears that tough action on bad loans could slow economic recovery, the Financial Times reported. On the surface, India appears to be a beacon of growth among struggling global emerging markets, posting an increase of 7.3 per cent in gross domestic product in the most recent quarter this week, underlining its position as the world’s fastest-growing big economy.

Chinese companies and residents sent more than $110bn out of the country in January alone, according to new estimates, as they continued to evade tightening capital controls amid another round of market turmoil, the Financial Times reported. Surging capital outflows from China have become a source of growing concern around the world and left Beijing scrambling to support its currency. Recently-released data showed the country’s foreign exchange reserves falling to their lowest level in almost four years in January.

Australia’s government is considering a multibillion-dollar privatization of public health and welfare payments, as conservatives look for new ways to refill budget coffers emptied by an economic slowdown and collapsing prices of the country’s resource exports, The Wall Street Journal reported.