Commodity trader Noble Group has reported another lossmaking quarter blaming interest and restructuring costs. Singapore-listed Noble, which is scrambling to complete a debt-for-equity swap, said it would report a loss of $115m to $140m for the three months to June after incurring $95m of restructuring expenses and $70m-$80m of finance and tax costs, the Financial Times reported. Noble has agreed to pay the legal costs and expenses of several lenders and shareholders, including Goldilocks Investment Co, which came in support of the debt restructuring last month.
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Turkey’s banks are about to reveal the extent of the damage caused by the lira’s plunge and a surge in interest rates. As the country’s biggest lenders start reporting second-quarter results this week, investors will be scouring their balance sheets for clues into how they’re coping from a 22 percent slide in the currency this year that is knocking the ability of companies to repay their foreign debt, Bloomberg News reported. They’ll also be looking for signs on whether the highest borrowing costs in almost a decade have started to cool the economy.
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Indian lenders struggling to recoup loans worth about $20 billion to troubled property developers have to contend with another challenge: A lackluster recovery from the worst home-sales slump this decade. To recover the dues, banks are taking control of land parcels and unfinished projects that can be sold along with loans, Bloomberg News reported. This comes at a time when home sales volumes have declined about 40 percent over four years and prices have dropped as much as 20 percent on average, said S.
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South Africa is getting down to the business of fixing its debt-ridden state power utility. Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. had 399 billion rand ($30 billion) of debt at the end of March, according to Bloomberg data, and has been flagged by ratings companies as a key risk to South Africa’s economy, Bloomberg News reported. The utility has been mired in a series of scandals, struggled to raise funds and was forced to implement rolling blackouts last month after wage talks with unions broke down.
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Chinese financial markets are rediscovering an appetite for risk not seen in months, taking cues from the government’s biggest push yet to invigorate this year’s slowing economy, Bloomberg News reported. The CSI 300 Index of mainland stocks climbed 1.6 percent Tuesday, capping its biggest three-day gain since mid-August 2016, when economic indicators vindicated China’s moves to stabilize a slowdown back then. While there’s no guarantee of success this time, with the X-factor of a trade dispute with the U.S. at play, traders are betting big.
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China's biggest manager of bad debts is trying to exit early from at least three loans and investments as it wrestles with a liquidity crunch triggered by an anti-corruption probe into its chairman, people with knowledge of the matter said, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. China Huarong Asset Management, one of four state-backed so-called "bad banks" formed in 1999, has been trying to raise cash since Lai Xiaomin resigned as chairman in April amid a graft probe, the sources said.
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Chinese domestic bonds may once have been the world’s biggest market that no one paid attention to. No longer. Mounting defaults and steepening yields have raised doubts about the $12 trillion market’s health, just as China’s economy shows signs of faltering, The Wall Street Journal reported. All the same, foreign investors have been piling in this year. Are they headed for a rude awakening? Stress is rising, for sure: Chinese companies have defaulted on $2.9 billion worth of bonds this year, almost as much as in all of 2017, according to Wind Info data.
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Analysts are taking note of the struggles in China’s banking industry, which is being battered by an official deleveraging drive, Bloomberg News reported. At least five smaller lenders have been downgraded by credit-rating companies this year, a record pace for the sector. Spikes in the volume of non-performing loans and an increase in loans overdue are among the reasons. One of the lenders -- Guizhou-based Guiyang Rural Commercial Bank Co. -- saw its bad debt balloon nearly tenfold in the space of two years, according to the assessor that slashed its rating.
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China’s economic policy could be in line for a rethink, Bloomberg News reported. A slew of negative headlines from the escalating tension with the Trump administration and slowing growth to a bear market in stocks is prompting renewed focus on if and how policy makers will respond. Whether that’s a softening in Xi Jinping’s signature anti-leverage campaign or an official shift to monetary easing to match tweaks already made, upcoming meetings of the top political leadership provide an opportunity for a change of direction -- or an affirmation of the course already set.
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