Asia Pacific

Lenders to Australia's beleaguered Nine Entertainment television network, owned by CVC Capital Partners Ltd, are close to agreeing on a deal to swap debt for equity, sources with knowledge of the talks said, Reuters reported. The deal will wipe out CVC's A$1.8 billion ($1.84 billion) equity investment in Nine, marking the largest-ever loss on a single private-equity deal in Asia, and one of the biggest globally. Nine had proposed a debt-for-equity swap deal to avoid going into receivership.

Equipment rental company Hirepool has sought clearance by the anti-trust regulator to buy rival Hirequip out of receivership in a bid to get greater exposure to the heavy construction sector as the Christchurch rebuild starts hitting its stride, The National Business Review reported. Hirepool, which is 75% owned by Australian private equity firm Next Capital, has requested the Commerce Commission clear its acquisition, saying the merger will not substantially cut competition as they largely operate in different areas.

Warring Nine Entertainment lenders remained intransigent Monday ahead of this morning's crucial meeting, which could result in the appointment of receivers, The Australian reported. Nine chairman Peter Bush and chief executive David Gyngell will host a 9am session at the Sydney offices of law firm Gilbert + Tobin, to be attended by representatives of US hedge funds Apollo and Oaktree, and Goldman Sachs. At issue is Nine's $3.3 billion debt, with $2.3bn in senior debt classified as current ahead of its February maturity.

A weekend gathering of the world's top finance officials deepened conflicts among some of the largest economies, raising fresh doubts about their ability to find big steps quickly to boost the flagging global recovery, The Wall Street Journal reported. At the annual meetings in Tokyo of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, European officials bickered about the damage caused by austerity; this week they head into a major euro-zone summit with no clear rescue plan for Greece.

China's new bank loans fell last month to well below market expectations, but analysts said that other forms of credit outside the system of state-dominated lenders offset the drop, meaning companies weren't short of funding. Analysts have been looking for signs the nation's big banks are opening credit taps to boost the world's second-largest economy. Gross domestic product expansion decelerated to 7.6% in the second quarter, the slowest in more than three years, kindling concern that the world is losing one of its main buffers against global recession.

Banks bailing out money-losing Sharp Corp. to the tune of $4.6 billion may increase their management oversight of the Japanese television maker to support its return to profit, Bloomberg reported. Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd. and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. plan to send executives to Sharp, the Asahi newspaper reported yesterday. The lenders, based in Tokyo, are selecting the executives and plan to discuss the matter with the company, the newspaper reported, without saying how it obtained the information.

China’s biggest banks are resisting government pressure to lower borrowing costs amid an economic slowdown as they seek to maintain the profitability of their lending operations, officials at the top four lenders said, Bloomberg reported. The banks are limiting discounts for their best corporate clients to 10 percent of the benchmark lending rate, the officials said, asking not to be identified as they’re not authorized to speak publicly. The central bank in July began allowing lenders to offer credit at 30 percent less than the benchmark rates.

The huge and rising government bond holdings of Japanese banks leave them vulnerable to a spike in interest rates, the International Monetary Fund has warned, the Financial Times reported. Sounding an alarm over the stability of Japan’s banking system, IMF officials said domestic bank holdings of government bonds in the country could rise to a third of their total assets within five years, from a quarter now.

India’s Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. (KAIR) escaped collapse in 2010 by restructuring 77.2 billion rupees ($1.4 billion) of debt it had run up buying airlines and adding routes amid the nation’s economic boom, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. Less than two years later, the carrier controlled by billionaire Vijay Mallya was back in talks with creditors, while its net debt had increased by 9 billion rupees. The airline this month grounded its entire fleet after pilots and engineers went on strike to demand seven months of unpaid salaries.

The global economy risks skidding toward recession just three years after pulling out of the previous one, the International Monetary Fund warned, adding that fighting a renewed world-wide downturn will be much more complex than it was in 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported. "Risks for a serious global slowdown are alarmingly high," said the IMF's World Economic Outlook report, which was released here Tuesday ahead of the fund's annual fall meeting. It was its bleakest assessment of global growth prospects since the 2009 recession.