Japanese auto supplier Sanden Holdings on Tuesday said it had filed for debt restructuring with its creditors as falling sales due to the coronavirus pandemic had made it difficult for the company to pursue its restructuring plans, Reuters reported. In a filing to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the maker of vehicle air conditioning components and compressors said it would enter a so-called alternative dispute resolution, which allows financially stressed companies to reassess and restructure debt.

Tetsuya Kan, head of a major regional bank in Osaka, said it will take two more years for the western Japan prefecture to recover from the damage caused by COVID-19, which has crushed the city’s once thriving tourism and retail sectors, Reuters reported. The vast number of Asian tourists who had flocked to Osaka’s shopping arcades disappeared after Japan banned entry for most overseas visitors, hitting hotels, restaurants and drug stores.

The restructuring of China’s Peking University Founder Group Corp (PUFG) highlights the limitation of keepwell deeds in protecting investors, ratings agency Moody’s said on Monday, casting a cloud over a structure used in almost $100 billion worth of Chinese dollar bonds, Reuters reported. Keepwell deeds are used by some Chinese companies to facilitate offshore bond sales by their subsidiaries. State-owned Peking Founder in February confirmed its failure to repay an onshore bond had led to a cross-default on $3 billion of offshore bonds.

Seafolly Pty Ltd, an Australian swimsuit maker part-owned by French fashion giant LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, appointed administrators on Monday citing a sales downturn from the coronavirus, the latest casualty of the health crisis in the country’s retail sector, Reuters reported. “Seafolly made the appointment because of the crippling financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Scott Langdon and Rahul Goyal, of KordaMentha Restructuring, in a statement.

India’s Bank of Baroda expects to step up bad loan recoveries this financial year despite the temporary relief on repayments imposed by the central bank during the lockdown on the economy, Bloomberg News reported. That will help the country’s third-largest state-run bank improve its capital ratios and boost new lending, according to Executive Director Shanti Lal Jain. “We will be focusing on all avenues to recover bad loans including asset sales, one-time settlements,” said Jain, who heads Bank of Baroda’s stressed assets management and credit monitoring.

Thailand’s long haul low cost carrier NokScoot Airlines will enter liquidation as the coronavirus pandemic worsened conditions for the struggling airline, its parent company Nok Airlines PCL said on Friday, Reuters reported. NokScoot, a joint venture between Thailand’s Nok Air and Singapore Airlines’ owned Scoot, wrestled to grow its network in a highly competitive sector for years and was yet to record a profit since formation in 2014.

Strains are emerging across China’s Rmb21tn ($3tn) trust industry, which has lured millions of ordinary investors seeking more profitable — but riskier — places to park their cash, the Financial Times reported. Dozens of disgruntled Chinese investors protested this week in Chengdu, capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan, after Sichuan Trust, based in the city, said the firm would struggle to make principal and interest payments on at least Rmb13bn worth of “trust of trust” vehicles due by the end of the year.

Australian-listed oil and gas company FAR Ltd said on Wednesday its Senegalese unit had defaulted on its obligations to the Sangomar joint venture, as the company looked to sell its interest in the project, Reuters reported. The company owns 15% of the Sangomar oil and gas field being developed off Senegal, while Cairn Energy holds 40%, Australia’s Woodside 35%, and Senegal’s national oil company Petrosen 10%, which it has the right to increase to 18%.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, preventing a viable firm from prematurely being pushed into insolvency, addressing individual financial distress and other challenges for insolvency regimes can be addressed through simple, transparent and time-bound measures, according to a World Bank Group official, Business Insider reported. Mahesh Uttamchandani, World Bank Group -- Global Lead, on Wednesday also said that due to the pandemic, 100 million people who were uplifted from poverty globally would fall back into poverty.

Even as the Centre has temporarily suspended the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) due to the current economic crisis following the Covid-19 pandemic, academicians have highlighted the threat of a possible surge in riskier behaviour of firms under extended immunity from the IBC, Business Line reported. Earlier this month, the Centre had issued an ordinance to suspend initiation of fresh insolvency proceedings against defaults arising on or after March 25 for a period of one year.