India's largest bank will hold a record online auction this weekend to sell repossessed flats, warehouses and offices worth a total of nearly $200 million as the state lender seeks to chip away at its $10 billion mountain of bad debt, Reuters reported. The State Bank of India auction will be the biggest nationwide online sale to date and is a rare public move to turn distressed loans into ready cash.

Ever since China’s gargantuan stimulus of 2009, which was unleashed to repel the global financial crisis, people have worried about how the debts incurred would be repaid. This week the finance ministry provided a partial answer, in the form of a scheme to restructure the liabilities of local governments, the most indebted of China’s public institutions, The Economist reported. Local governments will be allowed to swap 1 trillion yuan ($160 billion) of their existing high-interest debts for lower-cost bonds.

In a world convulsed by the rising US dollar, the renminbi looks like a port in the storm, the Financial Times reported. The Chinese currency has slipped just under 1 per cent against the dollar this year, a mere rounding error compared with the Brazilian real’s 14 per cent tumble and the euro’s 12 per cent slide. But for a currency long seen as lacking a reverse gear, the recent drop to a 28-month low is nonetheless gaining attention, with some predicting far more severe problems down the road.

It is unlikely that the fifth and final bill completing the insolvency framework – a set of laws offering protection to distressed borrowers – will be forwarded to the House plenum by March 19, when the suspension of tougher foreclosure legislation expires, House Finance committee chairman Nicolas Papadopoulos said on Wednesday, Cyprus Mail reported. Committee-level discussion of the fifth bill, which relates to the insolvency of natural persons, started in the morning in a joint session by the Finance and Interior committees.

Australia's IFM Investors said on Thursday it had agreed to pay $5.73 billion to buy the bankrupt operator of a major U.S. toll road, making its biggest overseas investment, Reuters reported. IFM Investors, which is owned by 30 Australian pension funds and manages $43 billion, said the purchase of ITR Concession Co LLC gave its investors access to core infrastructure in the world's largest capital market.

Germany-listed Chinese shoemaker Ultrasonic AG said on Tuesday that negotiations with its lending banks have failed and that in consequence, the management board was forced to file for insolvency, Reuters reported. Frankfurt-listed Ultrasonic said in September its top executives and most of its cash reserves in China and Hong Kong had disappeared. Read more.

Despite the critical breakthrough made on foreclosures legislation on Friday, when the cabinet approved the fifth and final bill comprising the insolvency framework, Finance Minister Harris Georgiades’ optimism that both bills will be voted by the House may yet prove misplaced, the Cyprus Mail reported. Opposition parties on Monday continued to voice reservations – or outright rejection – with regard to their provisions.

Disgraced liquidator Stuart Ariff will be released on parole on March 25 after serving four years in jail on 19 counts of criminal fraud, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. Ariff, who triggered a Senate inquiry into the insolvency industry in 2010 and a set of recommendations that called for an overhaul of the sector, will serve the remainder of his six-year sentence supervised on parole until it ends in September 2017.

China property developer Kaisa Group Ltd will hold a conference call for its offshore bondholders next week to discuss a proposed restructuring plan, a notice on the company's website said, Reuters reported. The call, to be held on Monday morning at 1000 local time(0200 GMT), will provide an overview of the struggling homebuilder's current situation, the proposed acquisition of the company by Sunac China, and its restructuring plan.

The guarantor’s obligation to repay any amount outstanding after considering the value of any collateral posted by borrowers is included in the fifth and final insolvency bill, which was approved by the cabinet on Friday, Cyprus Mail reported. The set of laws is designed to protect insolvent borrowers.