Asia Pacific

The bankruptcy filing of a giant shipping-fuel supplier has sent shock waves through Singapore, one of the world’s busiest ports, with companies in the city bracing for a number of payment defaults and worries over a potential cash crunch, The Wall Street Journal reported. Small buyers and sellers of shipping fuel, also known as bunker fuel, are expected to be hit the most in Singapore, where the industry is worth $20 billion to $25 billion in sales a year. The scare has also led to higher fuel prices and panic buying in other Asian ports and the Middle East.

China’s property market in October has shown some signs of mild improvement, but now may not be the time to heave a sigh of relief, The Wall Street Journal China Real Time blog reported. The year-on-year slide in housing sales moderated in October to 3.1% from the 10.3% recorded in September. Some home buyers apparently returned to property showrooms after Beijing announced a loosening of mortgage rules to support the country’s weakened housing market.

A flurry of firms have filed lawsuits against the Singapore units of bankrupt Danish shipping fuel trader OW Bunker, with claims totalling more than S$5 million, and traders say this is likely just the beginning of a wave of court actions. Court documents seen by Reuters showed that the overall amount of claims made against OW Bunker Far East and Dynamic Oil Trading, both Singapore-based subsidiaries of the Danish firm, over unpaid supplies now total around S$5.3 million ($4.11 million) made by nearly half a dozen companies.

A creditor of bankrupt OW Bunker is preparing a lawsuit in Singapore seeking to reclaim its money, court documents showed, as the fallout from the collapse of the world's largest marine fuel supplier begins to ripple through the sector, Reuters reported. In a separate case, court documents showed a second ship fuel company, Vanguard Energy Pte Ltd, filed for bankruptcy in the city state on Oct. 29, a week before OW Bunker said it had been driven to insolvency by suspected fraud at its Singapore trading unit.

A panel set up by the Union finance ministry to help frame a bankruptcy code will submit its suggestions on insolvency in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by the budget session of Parliament, followed by its report covering the larger corporate sector later next year, Livemint reported. The government is hoping that a bankruptcy framework, along with the various steps taken in the last few months, will improve the country’s ranking in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business report. India is currently at the 142nd rank out of 189 countries.

Zalman Tech, a legendary maker of cooling solutions and other devices, has filed for bankruptcy. The company had to file for insolvency protection in South Korea because its parent company Moneual took loans it could not eventually repay by using fabricated export data. The destiny of Zalman is unclear. Zalman was established in 1999 and initially focused purely on coolers for microprocessors and graphics cards.

Australia could face its first recession in almost 25 years unless authorities further stimulate the economy, Morgan Stanley said. The nation’s economy will expand just 1.9 percent in 2015, with 1.5 percentage points of that coming from higher exports, and unemployment will climb to 6.8 percent, Morgan Stanley economists led by Daniel Blake said in a research report today. They project the currency will fall to 76 U.S. cents by the end of next year from 87.37 cents at 11:10 a.m. in Sydney.

China’s small-loan providers have virtually halved lending as the slowing economy turns both lenders and borrowers more wary of risk, the Financial Times reported. New loans from China’s 8,591 small-loan providers came to just Rmb89bn ($14.5bn) in the first nine months of 2014, virtually half the Rmb161bn level in the same period last year, according to central bank data.

Iron-ore junior Pluton Resources is battling receivership after junior Chinese creditor Rizhao Port Group appointed receivers and managers, prompting fellow-listed Watpac to suspend an existing mining services contract at the Cockatoo Island project, Mining Weekly reported. Pluto told shareholders on Monday that the receivers and its solicitors had refused the company’s requests for details of the appointment.

Ryanair is one step closer to taking over Cyprus Airways after getting through to the second round of bidding for the ailing flag carrier at the weekend, the Irish Times reported. The Irish airline was one of 15 which submitted proposals to the Cypriot government in September to acquire and turn around Cyprus Airways, which in 2012 needed a €73 million state bailout after losing €56 million. According to incoming finance chief Neil Sorahan, Ryanair was informally told on Friday that it was on a shortlist, meaning it is through to the second round of the process.