Kazakhstan may merge its $23 billion state pension fund with the $57 billion oil fund in order to streamline their management, President Nursultan Nazarbayev said on Monday, Reuters reported. The state pension fund suffered a credibility crisis this year when its former chief executive Ruslan Yerdenayev and other managers were charged with embezzlement over a purchase of bonds issued by a local company in exchange for bribes. The trial started last month. Lawyers have told Kazakh media the executives - who have been sacked by the fund - have denied the charges against them.

South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co.’s labor union said on Tuesday its members have rejected the tentative wage deal its leadership had agreed with management last week, Reuters reported. The union in a statement said 50.2 percent of 45,008 voters rejected the deal as they deemed wage levels were inadequate compared with previous years’ agreements, whereas 48.2 percent accepted the terms. The remaining votes were invalid. The union said it will do its best to reach a new tentative wage deal within the year.

The Japanese economy is picking up more and moving toward the central bank’s 2 percent inflation target, though only gradually, government data released today showed, the Wall Street Journal reported. The core consumer-price index, which excludes volatile fresh food prices, rose 0.9 percent in November from a year earlier, a slightly faster pace than an 0.8 percent increase in October. Another index used by the central bank to assess the state of inflation, which excludes both fresh food and energy, rose 0.3 percent from a year earlier, compared with a 0.2 percent rise in October.

New Zealand has blocked HNA Group’s $460 million purchase of a vehicle finance firm owned by Australia and New Zealand Banking Group in the latest in a series of setbacks around the world for the acquisitive Chinese conglomerate, Reuters reported. The proposed sale of UDC, New Zealand’s largest non-bank lender, was agreed with ANZ nearly a year ago and the bank had counted on the proceeds to boost its capital.

Offshore driller Ocean Rig UDW Inc is preparing to explore a sale amid pressure from some of its largest shareholders to review its strategic alternatives, according to three people familiar with the matter. The move will be a key test of Ocean Rig’s value after it emerged from Chapter 15 bankruptcy in September, Reuters reported. Its business has suffered as low oil prices have made offshore drilling less economically attractive and pushed more oil exploration onshore.

Troubled commodity trader Noble Group on Thursday said it had obtained a waiver from creditors to extend covenants on a loan facility to May next year, giving it more time in its debt restructuring negotiations, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The covenants had already been extended twice until mid-December, as Noble battles to recover from two years of crisis.

Surging steel prices and a new Indian insolvency law have set the stage for an industry-defining battle between tycoons and producers for more than $26 billion of the sector’s most-coveted assets, Bloomberg News reported. Creditors are seeking the approval of India’s new bankruptcy court to sell assets of as many as 40 firms, including steel producers. That’s spurred Lakshmi Mittal, head of the world’s largest maker of the alloy, and fellow billionaire Anil Agarwal to vie for control of Essar Steel India Ltd., according to people with knowledge of the matter. Debt-laden Bhushan Steel Ltd.

Global A&T Electronics, a Singapore-based chip assembler that took on hefty debt a decade ago through a buyout by TPG Capital and Affinity Equity Partners, filed for bankruptcy as a 2013 debt exchange came back to haunt it, Bloomberg News reported. The chip-assembler listed debt of more than $1 billion and assets of over $500 million in Chapter 11 papers filed Sunday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.

A deal between Noble Group, the troubled commodity trader, and its creditors could involve a debt-for equity swap that would further dilute existing shareholders, its chairman has warned. Speaking at a shareholder meeting to approve the sale of its oil business to Vitol Group, Noble’s Paul Brough said there would be “more pain” ahead as it tries to restructure its debts to stave off the threat of insolvency, the Financial Times reported. “As we go forward, I think there will be more pain, but there is hope as well,” Mr Brough was reported as saying by Bloomberg.

Sentiment in the Chinese bond market has worsened as investors digest the government’s latest message about reducing risk in the financial system, the Financial Times reported. After November’s treasury sell-off, corporate bond prices have fallen; the spread between five-year triple A-rated corporate paper and equivalent Ministry of Finance yields has widened to a three-year high. The sell-off has spread to riskier assets in the wake of the release of draft rules aimed at bringing order to China’s Rmb75tn ($11tn) universe of asset management products.