Headlines

Brazilian retailer Americanas SA, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January, faces resistance from key creditors to a reorganization plan that could lead to a haircut of up to 80% on their claims, Reuters reported. The plan, submitted last week to a Rio de Janeiro court, would include a capital injection of 10 billion reais ($1.95 billion) from its top shareholders announced earlier this month. The billionaire trio that founded 3G Capital - which controls consumer goods giants like Kraft Heinz Co and Anheuser Busch Inbev - owns about a third of Americanas.

Egypt’s Central Bank said it raised interest rates on Thursday as the embattled Middle Eastern country continues to battle surging inflation and a depreciating currency, the Associated Press reported. In an online statement, the bank’s monetary policy committee said the most basic lending rate, the overnight deposit rate, has increased from 16.25% to 18.25%. The hike aims to ease spiraling inflation, with the annual figure reaching 32.9% in February, up from 26.5% in January.

Venezuela will push back a legal deadline on $60 billion of defaulted debt in a bid by President Nicolas Maduro to prevent creditors from filing a wave of lawsuits while he attempts to regain recognition from the U.S., Bloomberg News reported. Maduro’s administration announced Thursday it suspended the statute of limitations on bonds issued by the government and state oil company, PDVSA, according to statements published on government websites. The suspension will be in effect for five years or until the US government lifts economic sanctions that prevent a debt restructuring.

It may be too soon for the Philippine central bank to pause from raising interest rates at its next policy meeting in May, Governor Felipe Medalla said, signaling its most aggressive tightening cycle in two decades could continue, Bloomberg News reported. May is “too early” to pause, “unless we actually see a price fall,” Medalla said in an interview Thursday on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations forum in Bali, Indonesia.

China is seeking a new international order with Beijing as the dominant player, and the European Union must be more assertive in defending its security and economic interests, including possible EU-wide controls on outbound investment, the bloc’s top official said Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported.

KG Mobility Co., the South Korean automaker formerly known as Ssangyong Motor Co. before going through bankruptcy, is seeking to revive its fortunes with a $30,000 electric sports utility vehicle, Bloomberg News reported. The carmaker Thursday unveiled four new vehicles at the Seoul Mobility Show, including the Torres EVX, its first electric car since conglomerate KG Group bought a majority stake in the firm in September 2022. Using lithium-iron-phosphate batteries made by BYD Co., the SUV has a driving range of 500 kilometers (310 miles) on a single charge.

The World Bank expects to boost the financing capacity of its middle-income lending arm by $50 billion over the next 10 years to help countries deal with overlapping crises, World Bank President David Malpass said on Thursday in Niamey, Niger, Reuters reported. Malpass said the increase in financing capacity for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) would come during the upcoming spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington in April.

Credit Suisse violated a 2014 plea deal with U.S. authorities by continuing to help ultra-wealthy Americans evade taxes and concealing more than $700 million from the government, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee found on yesterday, Reuters reported. After concluding a two-year investigation into Credit Suisse - which this month agreed to a rescue takeover by rival UBS - the committee said it had uncovered "major violations" of the 2014 agreement between the Swiss lender and the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) for enabling tax evasion.

Catalina Marketing Corp., a data and marketing services provider to retailers and consumer products companies, filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday for the second time with a prepackaged plan to slash debt and sell its business in Japan, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Catalina has suffered from a decline in demand for its services in recent years, including during the Covid-19 pandemic when most retailers were forced to close their doors, according to a court filing yesterday by Chief Financial Officer Michael Huffmaster.

Luc Despins, a New York bankruptcy lawyer, typically took on difficult jobs: After the energy company Enron collapsed years ago, he helped thousands of victims recover some of their money. But when Mr. Despins was appointed by a bankruptcy court last year to locate the assets of Guo Wengui, a Chinese property mogul and political provocateur who had failed to repay tens of millions of dollars to a hedge fund, the assignment presented very different challenges, the New York Times reported. In November, protesters appeared outside his home and that of his ex-wife.