Two Turkish construction groups in a consortium that includes General Electric Co. started talks to restructure 900 million euros ($1.1 billion) of loans, the latest sign of corporate distress following a plunge in the local currency, Bloomberg News reported. The firms, which used the debt to build hospitals, are negotiating with lenders on the foreign-currency loans, according to two people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as negotiations are private. The consortium is made up of Gama Holding AS and Turkerler Insaat AS, while Boston-based GE’s stake is around 10%.

China Evergrande Group, the country’s most indebted property developer, on Wednesday said it has raised $555 million in a secondary share sale, settling for half its initial target and sparking a 16% drop in its share price, Reuters reported. To help pay debt, the firm sold 260.65 million shares at HK$16.50 ($2.13) each - the low end of a price range flagged by its bankers in a term sheet when the deal launched on Tuesday.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Wednesday called for increased participation in debt relief for poor countries by private creditors and China, saying this was key to its success and a potential framework for debt restructurings, Reuters reported. Georgieva told a news conference that private creditor participation in a debt service suspension program for poor countries has been largely non-existent, with only three of 44 countries signed up for the program reaching out to private creditors.

Rich nations, development banks and private creditors need to ramp up support for poorer countries to prevent humanitarian crises and a “lost decade” of global growth, the prominent G30 group of former policymakers and academics said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. How to support struggling countries is the most pressing issue being discussed during the virtual annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank this week amid warnings 150 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty by the end of next year. The G30, which includes former U.S.

The Thai central bank on Wednesday said in its weekly press conference that it was working out an additional debt restructuring package using targeted measures to help borrowers in a grim economy hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, Xinhuanet reported. The additional package is intended to improve the efficiency of existing measures and address borrowers' problem in a targeted manner, said Mathee Supapongse, assistant governor of the Bank of Thailand (BOT). The package will include a debt holiday, soft loans and other related measures, said Mathee.

AirAsia X has proposed to its creditors to restructure MYR63.5 billion ringgits (USD15.3 billion) of liabilities through a reconstitution into an acknowledgement of indebtedness for a principal amount of up to MYR200 million (USD48.2 million), ch-aviation reported. The Malaysian long-haul low-cost carrier proposed in a stock market filing that any outstanding amounts above the reconstituted value and all sums, such as interest, incurred after June 30, 2020, be waived.

Data from CreditorWatch shows that 436 businesses across Australia went into administration in September, which is 11 per cent higher than previously, MacroBusiness reported. The number of businesses going into administration in locked-down Victoria rose by 23.8 per cent, although there was a 1.6 per cent decline in business administrations in New South Wales. CreditorWatch’s chief economist Harley Dale says there is some correlation between the increase in business administrations and the recent reduction in government support measures such as JobKeeper wage subsidy.

Forecasts for the global economy are “somewhat less dire” as rich nations and China have rebounded quicker than expected from coronavirus lockdowns, but the outlook for many emerging markets has worsened, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The IMF forecast a 2020 global contraction of 4.4% in its latest World Economic Outlook, an improvement over a 5.2% contraction predicted in June, when pandemic-related business closures reached their peak.

China Evergrande Group is seeking as much as HK$8.43 billion ($1.09 billion) in a share placement, accelerating efforts to shore up its balance sheet after a liquidity scare that rattled investors and Chinese regulators last month, Bloomberg News reported. The world’s most indebted developer is selling 490 million shares in a top-up placement for HK$16.50 to HK$17.20 each, a discount of as much as 14.7% to the last closing price in Hong Kong, according to terms of the deal obtained by Bloomberg News.

Global finance leaders on Tuesday said the world economy had escaped a coronavirus-triggered collapse so far, but warned that failure to conquer the pandemic, maintain stimulus and tackle mounting debt among poor nations could crush a fragile recovery, Reuters reported. At the start of the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the IMF issued slightly improved growth forecasts spurred by unexpectedly stronger rebounds from coronavirus lockdowns in the wealthiest countries and China.