It’s been years coming, but the latest Chinese moves to rein in leverage mean 2018 may be the year for the country’s first bond default by a local government financing vehicle, Bloomberg News reported. The units that amassed record debt in the borrowing-and-building binge after the global financial crisis have faced increasing strains, and with their borrowing costs climbing Moody’s Investors Service and others have anticipated a default at some stage. Aberdeen Standard Investments says the groundwork is now ready for that to happen in 2018.

New loans in China dipped last month as growth in total financing slowed, signalling a more measured increase in credit and tighter conditions for shadow financing after a record jump in new lending in January, the Financial Times reported. New renminbi loans totalled Rmb839.3bn ($132.2bn) in February, according to the People’s Bank of China - down from a record Rmb2.9tn in January, when loan officers’ annual lending quotas reset and local governments leaned on banks for loans as they awaited their own quotas for bond sales.

The Singapore Stock Exchange has asked Noble Group, the crisis-hit commodity trader, to appoint an independent adviser to review its proposed debt-for-equity swap that will see existing shareholders almost wiped out, the Financial Times reported. Under the proposed deal, about half of the company’s $3.5bn of senior debt will be swapped for equity. As a result, creditors will own around 70 per cent of the restructured company, while management will get 20 per cent. Existing shareholders will get just 10 per cent.

Tata Steel Ltd said on Wednesday it had been selected as the highest bidder to buy a controlling stake in debt-laden Bhushan Steel Ltd, ending weeks of speculation on which Indian group would clinch a deal, Reuters reported. Salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group’s steel business and India’s biggest domestic steelmaker JSW Steel Ltd were the two primary industry bidders for the acquisition of Bhushan Steel.

The debt resolution of Essar Steel has turned into a full-scale corporate war between VTB Bank of Russia and LN Mittal’s ArcelorMittal, both of which have made multi-billion dollars offers for the Gujarat-based steel company, Business Standard reported. All eyes are now on the lenders’ meeting scheduled on Thursday. The lenders are expected to call for a second round of bidding. According to sources, legal advisers are not convinced about the eligibility of either bidder.

Indonesia will hand over a luxury yacht seized on the resort island of Bali to U.S. authorities, police said Wednesday, giving the Justice Department an elusive asset connected to a $4.5 billion fraud case centered on the Malaysian state fund 1MDB, The Wall Street Journal reported. Daniel Silitonga, Indonesia’s chief police investigator in seizure of the yacht Equanimity, said police would transfer control over the $250 million, 300-foot vessel “in a few days” upon the completion of legal arrangements.

A wording on the “full release” of claims by senior creditors could absolve Noble legal debt claims, Singapore Business Review reported. According to Bloomberg, experts are raising concerns about Noble’s debt restructuring plan. On page 5 of Noble’s restructuring term sheet, a clause states that the arrangement provides the “full release of any and all other claims” that any senior creditor may have against Noble Group, its management, directors, advisers, agents and representatives in relation to its existing senior debt.

The rapidity and size of China’s debt boom in the past decade has been almost entirely without precedent. The few precedents that do exist — Japan in the 1980s, the US in the 1920s — are not encouraging, the Financial Times reported. Most coverage has rightly focused on China’s corporate sector, particularly the debts that state-owned enterprises owe to the big four state-owned banks. After all, these liabilities constitute the biggest bulk of the total debt outstanding, and also explain most of the total growth in Chinese debt since the mid-2000s.

Billionaire T. Ananda Krishnan’s Aircel Ltd. has asked an Indian court to initiate bankruptcy proceedings as it’s unable to repay about 500 billion rupees ($7.7 billion) of dues, Bloomberg News reported. The mobile carrier owes about 150 billion rupees to secured financial creditors and the rest to operational unsecured creditors, including those who provided it goods and services, Janak Dwarkadas, a lawyer representing Aircel, told the Mumbai bench of National Company Law Tribunal on Monday. In addition, the company also has an unpaid interest amount totaling 5.79 billion rupees, he said.

South Korea’s finance minister said on Monday that General Motors Korea’ creditors and its labor union should share the burden of improving the loss-making operation, Reuters reported. “The unions and creditors should together share the burden, and (restructuring measures) should not be temporary but sustainable,” Kim Dong-yeon told reporters. GM Korea announced last month it would shut down a factory in Gunsan, southwest of Seoul, and that it was mulling the fate of its three remaining plants in South Korea.