Thailand's oldest lender, SCBX Pcl, said on Thursday that it was pulling out of a $500 million deal to buy crypto exchange Bitkub, saying the start-up needed time to fix regulatory issues, Reuters reported. "Bitkub is currently in the process of resolving various issues as per the recommendations and orders of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Thailand, which are uncertain in terms of timeframe in resolving those issues," SCBX said in a statement. "As a result, the buyer and the seller have agreed to terminate the transaction," it said.

Australia's companies are split, as big miners and airlines expect higher profits on soaring commodities prices and a rebound from COVID-19, while supermarkets, banks and manufacturers are hurt by inflation and stagnant wages, Reuters reported. Annual business results and profit forecasts reveal a divide in the world's 13th-biggest economy between companies, largely international, that collect on rising prices and those, largely focussing on the domestic consumer, that are forced to absorb the higher costs.

Three Arrows Capital Ltd.’s liquidators secured a key court decision in Singapore that may give them greater insight into the collapsed crypto hedge fund’s remaining assets in a major jurisdiction, Bloomberg News reported. The Singapore High Court on Monday granted a petition by advisory firm Teneo, which in June was appointed by a British Virgin Islands court to liquidate Three Arrows, to recognize the liquidation order in the country, the people said, asking not to be named as the proceedings were private. Teneo is trying to round up and preserve the hedge fund’s assets.

Commodity trader Noble Group Ltd will pay a S$12.6 million ($9.03 million) penalty for releasing 'misleading' information in its financial statements between 2012 and 2016, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The company, which was once the biggest commodity trader in Asia, saw its market value all but wiped out from $6 billion in 2015 after accusation of inflating its assets, forcing it to sell billions of dollars of assets, taking hefty writedowns and cut hundreds of jobs.

Debt-ridden Future Enterprises is now facing a second insolvency plea filed by an operational creditor before National Company Law Tribunal, the Economic Times of India reported. The latest petition was filed by Retail Detailz India, claiming default of Rs 4.02 crore before the Mumbai bench of the NCLT. "The Company has received e-filing confirmation from NCLT with respect to the filing of an application by an Operational Creditor Retail Detailz India Private under section 9 of the IBC for an alleged default amount of Rs 4.02 crore," Future Enterprises said in a filing.

China's unemployment insurance payouts hit a record high in June, adding to signs of a struggling labour market as the economy has been badly hit by COVID-19 outbreaks and a property crisis, Reuters reported. Payments by China's unemployment insurance fund jumped 256.6% in June from a year earlier to 37.19 billion yuan ($5.42 billion), according to Reuters' calculations based on data from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. That was the highest since the data series began in January 2013.

China's foreign exchange regulator phoned several banks on Wednesday to warn them against aggressively selling the Chinese currency, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, in a new sign of official discomfort with recent yuan weakness, Reuters reported. The Chinese yuan has been dropping against the dollar, and market participants said the telephone calls suggested authorities may be getting uncomfortable with the speed of the slide. The yuan jumped to 6.8605 per dollar in offshore trade after Reuters published news of the calls.

Cash-strapped Chinese developer Shimao Group has proposed a two-class restructuring plan to offshore creditors to repay $11.8 billion over a period of three to eight years, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter and a document seen by Reuters. Shanghai-based Shimao, which first missed a public offshore bond obligation last month, is the first major Chinese developer to kick off negotiations on restructuring terms with creditors.

Financial creditors to Future Retail have put in claims for Rs 21,058 crore, while operational creditors have sought another Rs 265 crore. Besides these, there are employee dues of Rs 9.8 crore and Rs 1.1 crore claims from other creditors, the Financial Times of India reported. Bank of India had initiated bankruptcy proceedings against Future Retail following the company's failure to repay creditors after lenders rejected a restructuring proposal where Reliance Group would take over the retail giant.

Indonesia’s central bank unexpectedly raised borrowing costs for the first time since 2018 as policy makers conceded that inflation pressures have risen, revising their price forecasts higher, Bloomberg News reported. Bank Indonesia raised its seven-day reverse repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 3.75% on Tuesday, a move predicted by only seven of 31 economists in a Bloomberg survey. BI raised its forecasts for headline and core inflation this year and said it sees risks that average price gains could exceed the 2%-4% target not just this year but also in 2023.