Headlines

Avianca Holdings SA won court approval to send its reorganization plan to creditors for a vote, bringing the Colombian air carrier one step closer to exiting bankruptcy under new ownership, Bloomberg News reported. Lenders and noteholders who agreed to refinance their debt at the beginning of Avianca’s bankruptcy case last year will get 72% of the airline’s equity in exchange for canceling about $934.7 million, according to court papers. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn said he would approve a disclosure statement that will be sent to creditors in the U.S.

The prospect of the largest overhaul to the global tax system in a century took a step forward this week as top Democrats introduced a plan to rewrite tax rules for multinational companies in a way that would allow the United States to join the rest of the world in an effort to crack down on tax havens, the New York Times reported. Finance ministers from around the world have been working for months to complete a plan to end what they describe as a race to the bottom on corporate taxation before an October deadline.

Malaysia’s long-haul budget carrier AirAsia X Bhd has obtained court permission to extend the deadline to convene its creditor meetings to March next year, it said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. AirAsia X said the High Court granted an order for an extension until March 17 for it to convene separate meetings of the creditors “for the purpose of considering and, if thought fit, approving with or without modification” a restructuring scheme to be proposed.

China's factory and retail sectors faltered in August with output and sales growth hitting one-year lows as fresh coronavirus outbreaks and supply disruptions threatened the country's impressive economic recovery, Reuters reported. Industrial production rose 5.3% in August from a year earlier, narrowing from an increase of 6.4% in July and marking the weakest pace since July 2020, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Wednesday. Output growth missed the 5.8% increase tipped by analysts.

British inflation hit a more than nine-year high last month after the biggest monthly jump in the annual rate in at least 24 years, largely due to a one-off boost reflecting the "Eat Out to Help Out" scheme that pushed down restaurant meal prices last year, Reuters reported. Consumer prices rose by 3.2% in annual terms last month after a 2.0% rise in July, the highest rate since March 2012, the Office for National Statistics said. The 1.2 percentage point rise in the annual rate of inflation in the space of a month marked the sharpest such increase since detailed records started in 1997.

Canada's annual inflation rate accelerated to an 18-year-high in August, driven by broad upward price pressures, data showed on Wednesday, just days before a hotly contested federal election that could see Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals ousted, Reuters reported. The rate rose to 4.1% in August, its fastest clip since March 2003, Statistics Canada said, beating analyst estimates and prompting Trudeau's main rival to pounce over the rising cost of living.

Cash-strapped property group China Evergrande Group said on Tuesday that it has engaged advisers to examine its financial options and warned of default risks amid plunging property sales, sending its stock and bond prices sharply lower, Reuters reported. The real estate giant has been scrambling to raise funds it needs to pay lenders and suppliers, with regulators and financial markets worried that any crisis could ripple through China's banking system and potentially trigger wider social unrest.

Banks led by State Bank of India (SBI) have called on the Indian government to give debt-laden Vodafone Idea more time to clear its tax dues and spectrum fees, Reuters reported. An Indian court last year ordered the mobile carrier, a joint venture between the Indian unit of Britain’s Vodafone Group and Aditya Birla Group’s Idea Cellular, to pay just over $8 billion to the government to settle long-standing dues. Vodafone has a stake of about 44% in the company and Aditya Birla owns nearly 27%.

The new owners of Jet Airways have deferred the commencement of its operations for the fourth time in a year, even as the airline continues to be trapped in legal wrangles with lenders and employees, the Economic Times of India reported. Jet stopped operating in April 2019, burdened under piling losses, debt and dues. It was admitted for insolvency proceedings by the National Company Law Tribunal in June 2019.

The United Arab Emirates aims to raise the value of economic activity with Israel to more than $1 trillion in the next 10 years, hoping to work together on everything from healthcare to climate change and energy, the UAE economy minister said, Reuters reported. The Gulf Arab state has signed dozens of memorandums of understanding with its new ally in the year since it became the first Arab state to normalise ties with Israel this century. It was not immediately clear how the two countries expect to reach $1 trillion in economic activity in the next decade.