Asia

China Evergrande Group missed paying bond interest due on Wednesday, two bondholders said, its second unpaid offshore debt obligation in a week, although the cash-strapped company on Thursday made a partial payment to some of its onshore investors, Reuters reported. The company, reeling under a debt pile of $305 billion, was due on Wednesday to make a $47.5 million bond interest payment on its 9.5% March 2024 dollar bond, after having missed $83.5 million in coupon payments last Thursday.

Mizuho Financial Group's main banking arm said on Thursday a system glitch has been delaying some foreign exchange transactions, just a week after it was slapped with a regulatory punishment over system troubles earlier in the year, Reuters reported. Japan's third-largest lender has experienced a series of technical problems despite a $3.6 billion overhaul of its systems in 2019, prompting the Financial Services Agency (FSA) to become more involved in inspections of its computer system, an unusual move for the banking regulator.

Hong Kong's retail sales climbed for the seventh straight month in August, helped by a stabilising COVID-19 situation, an improved labour market and economic recovery and thanks to a boost from a consumption voucher scheme (CVS), Reuters reported. Retail sales in August rose 11.9% from a year earlier to HK$28.6 billion ($3.67 billion), government data showed on Thursday. August's increase compared with a revised 2.8% growth in July.

China’s Liaoning Fangda Group and Hainan Development Holdings will offer cash and equity to settle debt owed to retail investors in HNA Group, four sources told Reuters, in the latest step to restructure the bankrupt company, Reuters reported. The details were disclosed by a Chinese government team that is carrying out HNA’s restructuring at a meeting on Wednesday organised for creditors.

A Chinese state-owned enterprise struck a deal to buy most of China Evergrande Group’s stake in a commercial bank for $1.5 billion, the latest sign that the country’s authorities are trying to help the property giant resolve some of its financial troubles, the Wall Street Journal reported.

After a bruising 18 months of the pandemic, this fall represented a fresh start for the apparel company Everlane. It was preparing to release a slew of new products, with September marking the beginning of an ambitious marketing campaign around its denim. Instead, Everlane has spent this month scrambling just to get jeans — along with other products like bags and shoes — out of Vietnam, where a surge in coronavirus cases has forced factories to either close or operate at severely reduced capacity with staff living in on-site bubbles, the New York Times reported.

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda played down the risk of a crisis from the troubles in China’s real estate market that have been exposed by the downfall of developer China Evergrande Group, Bloomberg News reported. “China’s real-estate problem is somewhat different from the problem we faced” in Japan in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Kuroda said in a virtual panel discussion at a forum hosted by the European Central Bank Wednesday. “Extremely speculative investment in the real estate market does not appear to be the case in the Chinese case,” he said.

Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund, the world’s largest pension fund, said it won’t include yuan-denominated Chinese sovereign debt in its portfolio, Bloomberg News reported. The decision comes as FTSE Russell is set to start adding Chinese debt to its benchmark global bond index, which the GPIF follows, from October. The pension fund will instead use a version of the World Government Bond Index that excludes Chinese government bonds, Hiroshi Nagaoka, an official at the pension fund, told Bloomberg News.

After strong observation by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance on deep haircuts in recent insolvency resolution cases and several other discrepancies on part of lenders, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has approved the code of conduct for Committee of Creditors (COC)—one of the key stakeholders in the resolution ecosystem, Fortune India reported. The IBBI board, in its meeting held on last Friday, has approved the code of conduct for lenders, according to sources close to the development.

Some holders of a bond issued by a company called Jumbo Fortune Enterprises are forming a committee to press their claims in the event of a default because they maintain China Evergrande Group is a guarantor of the debt, Bloomberg News reported. The $260 million note from Jumbo Fortune Enterprises matures Oct. 3, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The dollar note is guaranteed by China Evergrande Group and its unit Tianji Holding Ltd.