Asia Pacific

Bonds of Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd., a developer based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, plunged to record lows after the resignation of its chairman triggered a default on one of its loans, Bloomberg News reported. The developer’s $800 million of 8.875 percent notes due 2018 and sold to investors at par in March 2013 tumbled to 40.9 cents on the dollar as of 5:02 p.m. in Hong Kong, from 66.3 cents on Dec. 31, sending yields to 45.7 percent. Kaisa was unable to repay a HK$400 million ($51.6 million) loan from HSBC Holdings Plc on Dec.

Pie Face, the fast food franchise placed in voluntary administration last month, looks set to survive following a deal struck with creditors at a meeting in Sydney, Business Insider reported. Fairfax Media reports that suppliers who are unsecured creditors will receive as little as 14 cents in the dollar owed and will wait two years for payment as part of the deal.

A drop in iron-ore prices has humbled resource-rich Western Australia, and turned a part of Perth where mining companies are based into something of a ghost town as offices lie empty, The Wall Street Journal reported. With its mineral abundance, the state helped steer Australia around a recession in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Western Australia has always seen itself as different, so sure of its importance to the national economy that it has threatened—just half in jest—to break away and join industrializing Asia, which buys its resources.

Japan’s government approved on Saturday stimulus spending worth $29 billion aimed at helping the country’s lagging regions and households through steps like subsidies and merchandise vouchers, but analysts are skeptical about how much the government can spur growth, the International New York Times reported. The package, worth 3.5 trillion yen (about $29 billion) was unveiled two weeks after a huge election victory by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition gave him a fresh mandate to push through his stimulus policies, known as Abenomics.

In the shadow of a group of enormous smokestacks and abandoned foundries, a peeling sign welcomes visitors to the Wenxi Steel Industrial Park. But in the nearby village, the working-age men and many of the women have gone, leaving only the elderly and the very young, the Financial Times reported.

India’s prime minister Narendra Modi this month unveiled plans to sell down government holdings in public sector banks, potentially injecting Rs1.6tn ($26bn) of capital into the banking system. But many analysts remain doubtful over the viability of the recapitalisation and how much it could raise, the Financial Times reported. Few disagree that banks in Asia’s second-largest economy need funds. Earlier this year, India admitted it needed to find an extra Rs2.4tn, with a particular focus on struggling state-backed lenders, which control around three-quarters of assets.

In a gritty industrial park here, 59-year-old Zhou Shoufang is leading hundreds of co-workers in a fight for pension benefits at a toy factory, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Zhou is part of China’s first generation of migrant workers, people who left their farms decades ago to work on assembly lines in coastal cities and who are now nearing retirement age. Such workers have until recently focused on securing higher wages.

Every urban real estate market is different in mainland China, driven by myriad municipal and provincial regulations and the varying strength of local economies. But the outcome is the same: The property market is under serious pressure, the International New York Times reported. Prices for newly constructed housing fell 1 percent to 9 percent in recent months in all 70 mainland cities tracked by the national government, according to data released Thursday. Prices kept falling in November compared with October in all but three cities, where they were unchanged.

Din Ruenmeesang spends about half his monthly income making minimum payments on his seven credit cards and multiple bank loans. That isn’t stopping the 33-year-old from borrowing again to buy a new car next year. Spenders like Din are making it hard for Thailand’s central bank to cut interest rates even as Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy struggles with weakening growth. Thai household debt has more than tripled in a decade to a record high 83.5 percent of gross domestic product, and lower borrowing costs may exacerbate that.

Showing classic symptoms of a mania, Chinese investors are borrowing heavily to buy stocks and flipping them quickly, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. On average, they are holding them for barely two weeks, compared with four months in the US. This is just the latest frenzy to hit China and its origins date back to 2008. After the global financial crisis hit, Beijing tried to sustain its growth rate by pouring record amounts of money into the economy.