Georgia’s national airline, Georgian Airways, has been put on the block after the carrier filed for insolvency, Eurasianet.org reported. Listed for an asking price of $150 million, the 28-year-old airline said that the pandemic-induced collapse of air travel forced the company to the verge of bankruptcy. Since 1993, “we have proudly flown under the Georgian flag. We have not stopped flying even in the hardest periods for Georgia,” the company said in a January 18 statement.
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An ad hoc offshore creditors group of China Evergrande said on Thursday that it has had no substantive engagement with the firm over its restructuring plans despite the firm's repeated assurances, Reuters reported. The group, represented by law firm Kirkland & Ellis and investment bank Moelis & Company, said in a statement it has no option but to seriously consider enforcement actions and it is prepared to take all necessary actions to defend its legal rights.
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India's Future Group plans to challenge its own lenders in the Supreme Court to avoid being named a defaulter for missing payments, citing its ongoing dispute with partner Amazon.com Inc, three sources told Reuters on Thursday. Future, the country's second-largest retailer, has since 2020 failed to complete its $3.4 billion retail asset sale to a rival due to successful legal challenges by Amazon, which argues the Indian group violated certain non-compete contractual terms the two sides had. Future denies any wrongdoing.
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China Aoyuan Group Ltd. won’t make payments on four dollar bonds and said that will trigger defaults on all other offshore debt, becoming the latest Chinese developer to succumb to the industry’s liquidity crisis, Bloomberg News reported. The company won’t pay off a dollar note that matures Thursday or a separate bond due Sunday, it said in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing late Wednesday. The notes have a combined $688 million of principal outstanding, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
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Turkey’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged Thursday, pausing a cycle of rate cuts and launching an “open-ended” policy review after inflation surged to its highest level since the beginning of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 19-year rule, Bloomberg News reported. The Monetary Policy Committee, led by Governor Sahap Kavcioglu, held its one-week repo rate at 14% as forecast by all 20 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, in its first meeting since inflation hit a record 36.1%.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to meet Thursday with the leader of El Salvador, the first country to make bitcoin legal tender, while the Turkish central bank kept interest rates on hold in a move that will likely do little to arrest the country’s currency crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported. With El Salvador planning to launch a $1 billion bitcoin-backed bond, Turks and foreign investors are watching closely to see if the meeting between Mr.
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China is drafting nationwide rules to make it easier for property developers to access funds from sales still held in escrow accounts in its latest move to ease a severe cash crunch in the sector, Reuters reported. Regulatory curbs on borrowing have driven the sector into crisis, highlighted by China Evergrande Group, which was once China's top-selling developer but is now the world's most indebted property firm with liabilities of $300 billion.
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The United Arab Emirates and Turkey agreed to a currency swap equivalent to nearly $5 billion that reinforces an economic partnership between two Middle Eastern rivals and provides Ankara with a badly needed infusion of foreign funds, the Wall Street Journal reported. The deal, announced Wednesday, deepens the detente between Turkey and the U.A.E., powers that until recently were on opposite sides of a Middle Eastern cold war and remain at odds over conflicts in the region.
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Tayo Rolls, a Tata group firm, has not generated any revenue since FY18 and is currently undergoing the corporate insolvency resolution process. That has not stopped a section of market punters from trading vigorously in its stock, which has soared nearly 230% since October 1, the Economic Times of India reported. In the absence of a running business operation, analysts said the trading frenzy in the stock could be part of a 'pump and dump' strategy by operators. Tayo Rolls, which suspended its operations in May 2016, is owned by Tata Steel and Japan's Yadogawa Steel.
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China’s economy slowed markedly in the final months of last year as government measures to limit real estate speculation hurt other sectors as well, the New York Times reported. Lockdowns and travel restrictions to contain the coronavirus also dented consumer spending. Stringent regulations on everything from internet businesses to after-school tutoring companies have set off a wave of layoffs. China’s National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday that economic output from October through December was only 4 percent higher than during the same period a year earlier.
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