The debt burden currently faced by TH Plantations Bhd (THP) cannot be resolved via asset sale but rather a restructuring of its debt, said Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Religious Affairs) Ahmad Marzuk Shaary, The Edge reported. Speaking in the Dewan Rakyat today, Ahmad Marzuk raised the suggestion on grounds that the bulk of THP’s debt goes to parent Lembaga Tabung Haji, and that asset sale will negatively impact THP’s cash flow rather than improve it. “About 75% of the loans by THP came from Tabung Haji.

The Olympic cauldron will remain unlit and its stadium empty on Friday as the virus-triggered postponement of the Tokyo Games leaves disappointed fans wondering if it’s still worth holding on to tickets and hotel operators fretting over thousands of vacant rooms, Bloomberg News reported. Japan will still mark the day originally scheduled for the opening ceremony with a national holiday.

A growing number of Asian firms are delaying bond repayments or seeking debt swaps amid mounting stress, boosting uncertainty for debtholders, Bloomberg News reported. Flagship carrier PT Garuda Indonesia and Dr. Peng Telecom & Media Group Co. have extended the maturity on their dollar bonds in recent months, while Chinese business-park developer Yida China Holdings Ltd. conducted a debt exchange earlier this year. Indonesian builder PT Modernland Realty’s bondholders last week agreed to lengthen the maturity of its rupiah notes.

London-based Nithia Capital Resources Advisors LLP is seeking to acquire troubled Singapore commodity trader Agritrade International Pte Ltd (AIPL) and its shares in its Hong Kong-listed subsidiary, according to a source familiar with the matter, Reuters reported. AIPL, whose businesses span palm oil and coal, is undergoing a court-appointed restructuring after it collapsed earlier this year amid fraud allegations. It owes $1.55 billion, including $983 billion to at least 20 banks.

Moody’s has clashed with the UN after putting five countries on review for a downgrade in recent weeks, saying that a G20-backed debt suspension scheme poses risks to private creditors, the Financial Times reported. The rating agency took action against Ethiopia, Pakistan, Cameroon, Senegal and the Ivory Coast, after the countries opted into a G20-backed initiative that allows them to freeze official bilateral debt repayments due this year to member nations and members of the Paris Club, a group representing major credit countries.

A keenly watched Indian shadow bank insolvency process has been delayed, highlighting how the virus pandemic is impeding the nation’s nascent bankruptcy regime, Bloomberg News reported. Payments to creditors from Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd., whose default in September 2018 triggered a lingering credit crisis in India, are likely to spill over to the financial year beginning April 2021, management said in a call on Monday. It had previously aimed to resolve a bulk of those by this month.

Some of the world’s largest developing economies are set to face a fiscal crisis in the coming years unless they can roll back huge increases in public spending enacted in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, analysts have warned, the Financial Times reported. The economic downturn caused by the pandemic, combined with rising healthcare spending to tackle the spread of the virus, have caused budget deficits to soar in many countries. They will have to face the choice of risking public unrest by cutting back on spending, or negotiating with investors to restructure their debts.

Southeast Asian low-cost carriers, a key growth engine for planemakers and leasing companies for a decade before the pandemic, are faltering financially as demand plunges, raising questions over whether they can replace and double their fleets, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Auditors for Malaysia's AirAsia Group Bhd and Vietnam's VietJet Aviation JSC are concerned about cashflows and funding, while Indonesia's Lion Air has put the brakes on a planned flotation.

Australia faces an avalanche of business failures in its transport and hospitality sectors after government subsidies end in September, insolvency lawyers and economists say, while some argue that so-called ‘zombie’ firms should be allowed to fail, Reuters reported. About 240,000 businesses in tourism and professional services are at high risk of failing during the September ‘fiscal cliff’, when widespread wage subsidies are set to end, economists at Deloitte said on Monday.

India’s Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) said on Monday it expected to resolve about 57% of its near trillion rupee ($13.35 billion) debt pile even as the pandemic delayed the resolution process in some of the group companies, Reuters reported. About 50% of the debt is expected to be resolved by March 2021, the indebted infrastructure lender’s board said in a progress report, with 18% already addressed as of June end. The board had said in an update in October that it aimed to resolve 50% of the debt by March this year.