China

Ofo, the Alibaba-backed bike-sharing service, has “immense” cash flow problems and has considered applying for bankruptcy, according to the company’s founder, the Financial Times reported. Dockless bike-sharing companies, including Ofo and its main rival Mobike, have rolled out more than 20 million bikes in the past two years in China and abroad. With its yellow dockless bikes, Ofo — which has raised more than $2.2bn since it was founded in 2014 — exemplified the Chinese start-up model of growing quickly by raising money and burning through cash.

The U.S. and China are planning to hold meetings in January to negotiate a broader truce in their trade wars but are unlikely to have any face-to-face contact before then, according to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Bloomberg News reported. Mnuchin said that the two sides had held several phone conversations in recent weeks and were still in the process of planning further formal discussions. “We’re in the process of confirming the logistics of several meetings and we’re determined to make sure that we use the time wisely, to try to resolve this,” Mnuchin said.

A deluge of misfortunes has left China’s equity investors with their biggest losses in years, wherever you look. Stung by everything from a national vaccine scandal to a decline in consumer spending, the Trump administration’s crackdown on Chinese tech and Beijing’s tightening grip on education, gaming and drugs, the country’s stock market has lost $2.1 trillion in value in 2018, Bloomberg News reported.

Default risk for Chinese companies has climbed to the highest in 13 years as Beijing seeks to rein in its post-crisis construction boom, according to Moody’s Analytics. The research group’s measure of expected default frequency has risen above early-warning levels for about 25 percent of corporate borrowers, Bloomberg News reported. Moody’s Analytics, a separate entity from the ratings agency, uses the gauge to isolate companies and sectors that merit further investigation for financial distress.

A representative of a mysterious Chinese oil company was convicted Wednesday on charges that he tried to bribe government leaders in Africa in a case that put foreign officials on the stand to discuss deals, some of which were hatched in the hallways at the United Nations, the International New York Times reported. The federal trial of Patrick Ho put a spotlight on the methods that a once fast-growing oil company, CEFC China, used to expand its reach from Asia to Africa, Europe and the United States. Mr.

China will encourage “zombie” firms that still retain “business value” to restructure and woo strategic investors to cut debt to reasonable levels, the state planner said on Tuesday. As part of its efforts to curb soaring corporate debt and tackle price-sapping capacity gluts in sectors such as steel and coal, China has promised to improve bankruptcy procedures and allow vast numbers of loss-making “zombie” companies to close, Reuters reported.

Pockets of trouble in credit markets can originate in the most unlikely of spots, and that’s particularly true in China, Bloomberg News reported. From freezing Harbin in the north to tropical Hainan in the south, developers in Asia’s biggest economy have gorged on debt over the past decade and now owe global bond investors $114 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show. With demand in some rural regions now cooling and authorities narrowing funding options, the credit shakeout that bears have been predicting for years could be at hand.

China’s bid to ease funding strains faced by private sector firms is proving to be tough going and signs are that things may get gloomier, Bloomberg News reported. Local company bond failures are at their highest levels this year and show no indications of abating. Junk bond sales have slumped to 2014 lows and spreads between lower and top rated borrowers are hovering near the widest in more than two years. What makes all this worse is the slowing economy, according to Nanjing Securities Co.

China is preparing to end its $176 billion experiment with peer-to-peer lending. Alarmed by a surge in defaults, fraud and investor anger, Chinese authorities are planning to wind down small- and medium-sized P2P lending platforms nationwide, people with knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg News reported. Regulators may also order the largest platforms to cap outstanding loans at current levels and encourage them to reduce lending over time, one of the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private deliberations. Shares of P2P platform operators sank in New York.