Holders of Sri Lanka's international sovereign bonds face a 20% principal haircut in the country's debt restructuring as well as maturity extensions and a reduction in coupons, according to a Barclays report, Reuters reported. Investors' focus has shifted to the restructuring of Sri Lanka's $13.4 billion sovereign dollar bonds after Colombo got final sign off on a $3 billion programme from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) earlier this week, a financial lifeline in its bid to recover from its worst economic crisis in more than seven decades.

Turkey’s central bank held off from cutting interest rates on Thursday as the lira comes under pressure and the economy absorbs the fallout of last month’s catastrophic earthquakes, Bloomberg News reported. The Monetary Policy Committee led by Governor Sahap Kavcioglu left the one-week repo rate at 8.5%. The decision was in line with its guidance that the benchmark was at an “adequate” level following a half-a-percentage point decrease in February, a view the central bank reiterated in its statement on Thursday.

China Evergrande Group on Wednesday announced plans for the restructuring of its $22.7 billion in offshore debt, which could set a template for distressed rivals and shape investor sentiment on the country's embattled property sector, Reuters reported. The world's most indebted property developer gave creditors a basket of options to swap their debt into new bonds and equity-linked instruments backed by the group and its two Hong Kong-listed companies, Evergrande Property Services Group and Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday sued Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun, accusing him and other defendants of illegally selling crypto securities and scheming to artificially inflate trading volume in crypto assets, Reuters reported. Beginning around August 2017, Sun and his companies Tron Foundation Limited, BitTorrent Foundation Limited and Rainberry Inc engaged in a scheme to distribute billions of crypto assets known as Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT), the SEC said.

The executive board of the International Monetary Fund approved a loan worth $3 billion to help Sri Lanka through the financial crisis that has had the nation in a rolling economic and political crisis for more than a year, the New York Times reported. The I.M.F. had agreed in principle to extend the funds last September — subject to Sri Lanka’s meeting a series of conditions that included tightening its finances and renegotiating the terms of repaying debt it owes to the biggest economies in Asia.

Sri Lanka's foreign private creditors are considering proposing swapping the country's defaulted bonds for new securities where cash flow is linked to its economy's future growth, Retuers reported. Such bonds, known as state-contingent debt instruments, would be designed to automatically adjust variables such as coupon payments and maturities if the island nation's economy underperforms. The GDP-linked bonds would be based on International Monetary Fund's projections for Sri Lanka's economy. The latest IMF forecasts see it progressing from a 3% contraction in 2023 to a 3.1% growth in 2027.

Vietnam Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh urged banks to provide cheaper loans with longer terms to attract foreign investors to develop green power projects in the country, Bloomberg News reported. Vietnamese ministries also need to sit down with wind and solar energy investors to understand their difficulties and losses in order to find a “harmonious” pricing mechanism for both buyers and sellers, Chinh said at a Hanoi conference Sunday. Renewable energy companies on Mar.

The world’s most indebted developer has reached an agreement with a group of major creditors for a plan to restructure its offshore debt, just ahead of a key winding-up petition hearing Monday, Bloomberg News reported. An ad-hoc group of offshore bondholders has expressed support for China Evergrande Group’s plan, and a restructuring support agreement was being drafted. The builder sweetened its preliminary proposal including terms of a debt-to-equity swap option and the amortization arrangement in a debt extension. Evergrande declined to comment on Sunday.

China's central bank said on Friday it would cut the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves for the first time this year to help keep liquidity ample and support a nascent economic recovery, Reuters reported. Chinese leaders have pledged to step up support for the world's second-largest economy, which is gradually rebounding from a pandemic-induced slump after coronavirus-related curbs were abruptly lifted in December.

The Beijing office of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has been fined $30.8 million for failing to adequately audit a Chinese state-owned asset management company whose former head was sentenced to death on corruption charges, Reuters reported. The office also was ordered to suspend operations for three months for mishandling audit and other work at China Huarong Asset Management Co. in 2014-19, the Ministry of Finance announced Friday. Deloitte was fined 211.9 million yuan ($30.8 million), the ministry said.