Hsin Chong Group Holdings Ltd. is set to become the second Asian company to default on its U.S. dollar bonds this year, the latest sign of rising borrowing costs impacting weaker firms’ ability to repay debt, Bloomberg News reported. The Hong Kong-listed builder anticipates it won’t pay the $300 million 2018 securities due today and has engaged with noteholders and their advisers to find a consensual solution, according to an exchange filing late Thursday. It has also engaged holders its bonds due 2019 as the nonpayment on 2018 notes will constitute an event of default.

Kingtec Steel Corporation, based in China’s far northwestern region of Xinjiang, is preparing to apply for bankruptcy as a result of spiraling debt, the company said in a statement on Friday. Kingtec said it would be unable to pay all of its debts, including a 550 million yuan ($86.26 million) bond issued in 2013, Reuters reported. It blamed its problems on the poor steel business environment in Xinjiang as well as a “gradual deterioration” in its own operating conditions. It has ceased production.

India’s Tata Steel Ltd said on Friday it had completed the acquisition of a 72.7 percent stake in Bhushan Steel Ltd, which was in bankruptcy court over unpaid loans, Reuters reported. As part of the deal, a unit of Tata Steel is paying 352.33 billion rupees ($5.18 billion) to Bhushan Steel’s creditor banks. It will also pay Bhushan Steel’s operational creditors, such as vendors, another 12 billion rupees over 12 months. The Tata Steel unit will raise a bridge loan of 165 billion rupees to help fund the acquisition, while Tata Steel is investing the remainder in the unit, Bamnipal Steel.

Creditor J&T Private Investments (JTPI) said on Thursday it had taken over shareholder rights and installed crisis management at CEFC Europe, the Czech-based part of troubled Chinese conglomerate CEFC China Energy, Reuters reported. The move is a sign of fresh woes for CEFC Europe which bought Czech assets from real estate to breweries, an engineering firm, an airline and a football club, under an investment drive promoted by Czech President Milos Zeman. CEFC Europe protested against the move, saying it had the money ready to cover the debt.

Not long ago China was a leading culprit in global economic imbalances. Whether blame was ascribed to its undervalued yuan or its frugal people, the problem seemed clear. China was selling a lot abroad and buying too little back, The Economist reported. One data-point summed this up: its currentaccount surplus reached 10% of GDP in 2007, well above the level that is generally seen as reasonable. Far less attention has been paid to its steady decline since then.

A member of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) said the current time limit to resolve insolvency cases was more than adequate, The Hindu reported. This assumes significance in light of demands for more time to resolve cases filed for bankruptcy. Currently, after a case is admitted in the National Company Law Tribunal, it has to be resolved within 180 days, failing which the company goes into liquidation. In exceptional cases, the NCLT may allow another 90 days for resolution.

Russia’s VTB Capital-led Numetal Mauritius Pvt Ltd. today told the company law appellate tribunal that it has offered over Rs 37,000 crore for Essar Steel Ltd. in the second round of bidding, Bloomberg Quint reported. The second round should be opened and the highest bidder selected from it, Numetal told the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal. ArcelorMittal, the only other bidder to have put in a bid for Essar Steel in the first round in February, however, opposed the opening of the second round of bids and sought only the first round of bids to be considered.

Australia’s unemployment rate edged up to a 9-month high in April, despite an increase in the number of full-time roles, the Financial Times reported. Australia’s unemployment rate rose to seasonally-adjusted 5.6 per cent in April from 5.5 per cent in the previous month, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. That was above the 5.5 per cent forecast in a Reuters poll and broke from a four-month run at the same level.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s prospects for bailing out his younger brother’s phone company are fading after an Indian tribunal put his sibling’s Reliance Communications Ltd. into insolvency proceedings, which prohibit “connected persons” from acquiring assets of delinquent borrowers, Bloomberg News reported. Ambani is India’s richest man and the founder of upstart rival Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., which had agreed in December to pay about $3.7 billion for airwaves, towers and fiber assets of the company known as RCom.

Just seven years ago, Noble Group was an $11 billion-plus Asian commodity powerhouse, trading everything from soybeans to oil. Now it's worth barely $80 million, rooted among Singapore's penny stocks, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Noble has posted huge losses provoked by a lack of trade financing and market calls that went sour, while also whittling down a mountain of debt. On Tuesday, it reported a narrower first-quarter loss than a year ago, although saying its performance was still beset by constraints on liquidity and trade finance.