A U.S. bankruptcy court has confirmed the chapter 11 plan to liquidate entities of troubled Eagle Hospitality Trust (EHT), following a confirmation hearing held on Dec 20, 2021, Business Times reported. The DBS Trustee said it does not expect unit-holders will receive any distributions on account of liquidating trust interests at this time. Under the plan, the stapled securityholders will only be entitled to a distribution only if there is value available at EH-Reit and only if holders of claims against EH-Reit have been paid in full.

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This November, Chinese media reported that a 42-year-old restaurant owner in the central Henan province — who had made a name for himself by passing out free meals to medical workers — died by suicide after severe floods and yet another local outbreak of COVID-19 left his mired business hopelessly in debt, according to a commentary in Sixth Tone. That same month, a court in the southern megacity of Shenzhen made national headlines by approving a bankruptcy petition from a single mother and former small-business owner.

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Credit Suisse has launched legal action against SoftBank in an effort to recoup hundreds of millions of dollars it claims it is owed by the Japanese investor, marking a further deterioration in a relationship that has grown increasingly acrimonious following the collapse of Greensill Capital, Asia Nikkei reported. The lawsuit relates to $440m in funds that were owed to the Swiss bank's wealthy customers by Katerra, a U.S. construction company.

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Japan’s retail sales increased for a third straight month, as easing virus concerns fueled spending by consumers before the emergence of the omicron variant, Bloomberg News reported. Sales advanced 1.2% in November from the previous month, as shoppers spent more on clothing and motor vehicles, the industry ministry reported Monday. Economists had expected a 1.3% overall gain.
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Japan is offering oil from its national reserves as other nations kick off a coordinated release from strategic stockpiles to rein in prices, Bloomberg News reported. A government tender offered Oman crude from the strategic reserves in Shibushi for delivery between March and June, the trade ministry said in a statement dated Dec. 27. The tender didn’t specify a volume, give a reason for the sale, or confirm it was part of a U.S.-led initiative.
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Over the last two years, Masataka Yoshimura has poured money into the custom-suit business his family founded more than a century ago. He has upgraded his factory, installed automated inventory management systems and retrained workers who have been replaced by software and robots. Japan’s prime minister, however, wants him to do one more thing: Give his employees a substantial raise, the New York Times reported. The reasoning is simple. Wage growth has been stagnant for decades in Japan, the wealth gap is widening and the quickest fix is nudging people like Mr.
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China Evergrande Group said on Sunday it had made initial progress in resuming construction work with its chairman vowing to deliver 39,000 units of properties in December, compared with fewer than 10,000 in each of the previous three months, Reuters reported. Evergrande is the world's most indebted property developer, with over $300 billion in liabilities. It is struggling to repay bondholders, banks, suppliers, and deliver homes to buyers, epitomising a bloated industry suffering from the Chinese government's deleveraging campaign.
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Profits at China's industrial firms grew at a slower pace in November, the statistics bureau said on Monday, Reuters reported. Profits rose 9.0% on-year in November to 805.96 billion yuan ($126.54 billion), official data showed, compared with a 24.6% gain reported in October. For the January-November period, industrial firms' profits rose 38.0% year-on-year to 7.98 trillion yuan, slower than a 42.2% rise in the first 10 months of 2021. The industrial profit data covers large firms with annual revenues of over 20 million yuan from their main operations.
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Debt-laden China Evergrande Group said that the committee helping steer its massive restructuring is deploying extensive resources to help contain risks and will engage with creditors, the Wall Street Journal reported. The reassurance echoes a pledge earlier this month to work with holders of offshore debt and follows a sustained selloff in the company’s stock and bonds, with Evergrande shares recently hitting a series of record lows.
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The power to attach assets under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act will come to a halt once the liquidation process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code begins, the Delhi High Court said in an order last week, Bloomberg reported. In PSL Ltd.'s case, Nitin Jain was appointed as the liquidator by the National Company Law Tribunal under IBC to administer the affairs and estate of the company. Subsequently, Jain got a summons by the Enforcement Directorate, which was investigating the affairs of the company under the PMLA. Jain challenged the ED's move before the high court.
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