Hontop Energy (Singapore) Pte Ltd, the trading arm of a Shandong-based refiner, has gone into receivership, according to its business profile on the website of Singapore’s accounting and corporate regulator, Reuters reported. Singapore bank DBS, one of Hontop’s creditors, has appointed accounting firm KPMG as the receiver, a KPMG official told Reuters. DBS declined to comment. “Hontop continues to be run by the existing management. The receiver has been appointed over specific charged assets which mainly relate to one trade transaction financed by DBS.

China’s battered banks are being asked to sacrifice profits to help millions of cash-squeezed companies struggling under the weight of the coronavirus outbreak, Bloomberg News reported. Now they may finally see some relief for themselves. Liu Guoqiang, a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, said over the weekend that policy makers are considering lowering their benchmark deposit rate for the first time in five years.

Latin American and sub-Saharan African countries have taken out at least $152 billion in oil-, mineral- and metal-backed loans from China since 2004, easy money that has contributed to crippling debt levels, an NGO report said on Thursday, Reuters reported. The Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) calculated that, including loans from other countries such as Russia and global commodity traders, the total amounted to $164 billion. Two Chinese state banks, China Development Bank and Eximbank, alone accounted for 77% of the loans, NRGI said in its report.

Over the past six months, executives at Hong Kong-based investment firm SC Lowy have been inundated with calls from bankers in China hoping to sell them distressed debt, the Financial Times reported. This is a first in the 11 years since the $2bn firm was established and underscores how China, after spending two decades trying to clean up bad debt by itself, is finally warming up to foreign capital.

China’s banking regulator is considering setting up new regional bad-debt managers to help clean up risks after the failure of thousands of peer-to-peer lending platforms, according to people with knowledge of the matter, Bloomberg News reported. Companies in Shanghai, Zhejiang and Shenzhen have submitted applications to set up local asset managers dealing with bad loans, especially those from online lending platforms, said the people, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter.

Brigita, a director at one of China’s largest car dealers, is running out of options. Her firm’s 100 outlets have been closed for about a month because of the coronavirus, cash reserves are dwindling and banks are reluctant to extend deadlines on billions of yuan in debt coming due over the next few months. There are also other creditors to think about, Bloomberg News reported. “If we can’t pay back the bonds, it will be very, very bad,” said Brigita, whose company has 10,000 employees and sells mid- to high-end car brands such as BMWs.

British Steel’s Chinese bidder has written to the French government in an effort to save its stalling takeover of the collapsed UK manufacturer, the Financial Times reported. With the clock ticking down on a deadline for the deal to be completed, Chinese conglomerate Jingye has sent a letter to the French finance ministry to persuade Paris of the plan’s merits, said people with knowledge of the matter. UK officials agreed a £50m rescue deal with Jingye in November. Under the agreement, Jingye would take control of the group’s plants in Britain, France and the Netherlands.

Dollar bonds of Chinese conglomerate HNA Group Co. jumped to the highest in almost seven months after plans emerged of a government seizure of the embattled firm, Bloomberg News reported. Once the poster child for China’s debt-fueled overseas acquisition spree, HNA could now find itself a takeover target of Beijing, a plan that may involve the sale of its lucrative airline assets in an effort to limit the economic damage of the coronavirus.

Chinese lenders have cut a benchmark lending rate in a bid to prop up the country’s virus-hit economy as S&P warned that banks faced a surge of up to $1.1tn in bad loans, the Financial Times reported. Major lenders on Thursday reduced the one-year loan prime rate — a key lending rate used across China’s financial system — by 0.1 percentage points to 4.05 per cent. The reduction, which had been expected following the central bank’s own cut to its medium-term lending rate earlier this week, will ease lending conditions.

China plans to take over indebted conglomerate HNA Group Co. and sell off its airline assets, the most dramatic step to date by the state to contain the deepening economic damage from the deadly coronavirus outbreak, Bloomberg News reported. The government of Hainan, the southern island province where HNA is based, is in talks to seize control of the group after the contagion hurt its ability to meet financial obligations, according to people familiar with the plans.