Restructuring bankers have visited Sri Lanka to discuss proposals with the government on raising funds to help manage a debt crisis that has left the South Asian country struggling to pay for imports and stoked political controversy, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Advisers from investment banks including Rothschild & Co. and Lazard Ltd. have recently met with government officials and discussed potential plans to help the nation raise cash, including asset sales and securitized debt facilities. Rothschild declined to comment.

The trial of a former Goldman Sachs banker accused of helping loot Malaysia's 1MDB sovereign wealth fund will be paused due to late disclosure of some evidence by prosecutors to the defense, the judge in the case ruled yesterday, Reuters reported. Roger Ng, Goldman's former head of investment banking in Malaysia, has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to launder money and to violate an anti-bribery law. Prosecutors say Ng received millions of dollars in kickbacks for helping embezzle funds from 1MDB.

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal on Tuesday set aside an NCLT order that rejected an appeal by Reliance Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (RARCL) to initiate insolvency proceeding against Narendra Plastics. The NCLAT also directed the NCLT to initiate the insolvency proceedings against the company, the Economic Times of India reported.

Three months ago, Chinese authorities saved the country’s largest manager of distressed debt from a potentially disastrous collapse. Now, they’re turning China Huarong Asset Management Co. and its peers into a key line of defense for the $54 trillion financial system as defaults in the property sector soar, Bloomberg News reported.

Money raised by newly-launched private funds in China plunged 44% in January from a month earlier, latest official data showed, adding to evidence of rapidly-shrinking risk appetite amid a slowing economy and rising geopolitical tensions, Reuters reported. The disclosure by the Asset Management Association of China (AMAC) mirrors a slump in fundraising by Chinese mutual funds, and comes as a growing number of money managers announce fund launch failures, or extend subscription periods.

Two of China’s largest and most prosperous cities have cut interest rates for prospective home buyers, joining an effort to prop up a housing sector whose weakness could threaten the broader economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. Six of China’s largest state-owned banks, including Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, cut mortgage rates for home buyers in the southern city of Guangzhou by 0.2 percentage point on Monday, according to state-run broadcaster China Central Television.

South Korea’s parliament passed a larger-than-planned first extra budget of the year as the government tries to shore up parts of the economy worst hit by the nation’s biggest coronavirus outbreak of the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. The 16.9 trillion won ($14.2 billion) budget, approved by parliament late Monday, is aimed at compensating losses to businesses that have been laboring under some of the strictest conditions since Covid-19 erupted, as virus cases rose from thousands a day to over a 100,000. The government had initially proposed a 14 trillion won plan.

Zhenro Properties Group Ltd., a Chinese developer, said its existing internal resources may be insufficient to meet debt payment obligations next month, according to a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange, Bloomberg News reported. The Shanghai-based developer is soliciting the consent of creditors “to certain proposed waiver and amendments” to help improve its overall finances and give it stability, it said in the filing late Friday. Zhenro is China’s 30th largest builder by contracted sales in 2021, according to China Real Estate Information Corp.

Indonesia’s central bank may start next year to sell the government bonds it bought as part of a $58 billion debt monetization that supported stimulus spending during the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. “We will discuss the possibilities later but based on the information that we have now, it is likely that we will roll back our government bond holding starting next year,” Governor Perry Warjiyo said in a Saturday interview.

Passengers are starting to arrive in Australia as it allowed travel by double-vaccinated visitors, following almost two years of strict travel bans introduced to stem the spread of Covid-19, Bloomberg News reported. It’s also a long-awaited day for the tourism sector -- which employed about 5% of the nation’s workforce and contributed 3% to the economy prior to the pandemic -- and was already reeling in early 2020 from devastating wildfires.