Nomura Holdings Inc. announced business partnerships at home, Australia and New Zealand as Japan’s biggest brokerage seeks to move past a $2.9 billion hit from the implosion of Archegos Capital Management, Bloomberg News reported. Nomura signed an agreement with three regional Japanese banks to set up a joint venture to provide remote financial consulting services. It also struck up an alliance with investment bank Jarden Securities Ltd. to provide services such as stock and bond underwriting for clients in Australia and New Zealand, it said in separate statements on Monday.
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Australia’s fiscal authorities are taking a leaf out of U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s playbook in deploying spending to push the economy toward maximum employment, a stance that keeps policy aligned with the Reserve Bank, Bloomberg News reported. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says he will deliver a “jobs budget” on Tuesday that’s expected to boost spending on roads and railways to support hiring and extend income-tax breaks for low and middle income earners to keep them spending.
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Australia’s trade minister said the country’s international borders may not completely open until the second half of 2022, a longer-than-anticipated closure that would be a blow to the airline and tourism industries, Bloomberg News reported. In an interview with Sky News early on Friday, Dan Tehan was asked when Australia’s borders might open. “The best guess would be in the middle to the second half of next year, but as we’ve seen throughout this pandemic things can change,” Tehan said, according to audio of the conversation sent by his office.
Liberty Steel Group said on Wednesday that it had appointed a committee to restructure and refinance the group after Greensill Capital, its biggest lender, filed for insolvency in March, Reuters reported. The move comes after Sanjeev Gupta’s family conglomerate GFG Alliance announced that its Australian unit had agreed terms to refinance its exposure to Greensill. Liberty Steel, which is also under the GFG umbrella, said in a statement that four new board directors would form a Restructuring and Transformation Committee (RTC) to focus on fixing or selling underperforming units.
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Australia's corporate watchdog accused Westpac Banking Corp. of insider trading while financing a A$16 billion ($12 billion) energy grid privatisation in 2016, the latest in a series of regulatory problems for the country's No. 2 lender, Reuters reported. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said Westpac knew it had won the contract to help two pension funds buy Ausgrid, a state-owned power supplier to millions of people around Sydney, for two hours while it bought A$12 billion of derivative products to support the deal.
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Australian insolvency and restructuring experts say that reforms announced on Monday designed to help struggling companies at risk of collapse would benefit from adopting US-style bankruptcy options, the Australian Financial Review reported. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced steps to overhaul insolvency laws, including a strengthening of schemes of arrangement to better support the so-called debtor-in-possession model for large companies.
World shares advanced Thursday ahead of the release of U.S. economic growth data and following a speech by President Joe Biden outlining ambitious plans for beefing up early education and other family oriented policies, the Associated Press reported. London’s FTSE 100 jumped 0.7% to 7,013.40. In Paris, the CAC40 climbed 0.6% to 6,344.17. Germany’s DAX slipped 0.2% to 15,262.39 as a report showed weakening consumer confidence. The future for the Dow industrials rose 0.4% and that for the S&P 500 surged 0.6%. U.S.
The Australian government helped businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic last year by temporarily suspending some business directors' duties relating to insolvency risks. However, directors' obligations have reverted to the standard insolvency liability regulations this year, Insurance Business Magazine reported.
A war of words has erupted between Qantas boss Alan Joyce and Regional Express (Rex) deputy chairman John Sharp as the two airlines battle over a domestic air travel market recovering quickly from the pandemic, the Australian Financial Review reported. While Mr. Sharp earlier this week argued Qantas might be “technically insolvent”, Mr. Joyce has now questioned whether the former federal transport minister misled the market over the carrier’s financial health.
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