Headlines

Australia's competition regulator on Monday denied authorisation for Qantas Airways and Japan Airlines (JAL) to coordinate flights between the two countries, citing competition concerns as international travel is set to resume, Reuters reported. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Chairman Rod Sims said the regulator was not satisfied that the public benefits of the proposed joint business agreement would outweigh harm to competition.

A sale of Australia's biggest airport moved closer on Monday as an infrastructure investor group won permission to conduct due diligence on Sydney Airport Holdings Pt Ltd, after sweetening its takeover offer to A$23.6 billion ($17.4 billion), Reuters reported. The move sent the airport's shares up 5%, with analysts saying a rival bid appeared unlikely given the scale of the funding needed and foreign ownership rules that mean the airport must remain 51% Australian owned.

Latin America’s heavily-indebted corporations are likely to delay rehiring workers during the recovery from last year’s slump, according to the World Bank, Bloomberg News reported. The pandemic destroyed tens of millions of jobs from Mexico to Argentina while also leaving company balance sheets more fragile. Many businesses were kept alive by government debt forbearance programs that deferred interest on loans.

Berlin’s tenants are trying to evict large landlords. On Sept. 26, voters in Germany’s capital will decide whether to expropriate any landlord that owns more than 3,000 properties in the city, the Wall Street Journal reported. A clause in the German constitution allows for the move, but it hasn’t been tested before. It would affect real-estate investment trusts including Deutsche Wohnen DWNI 0.04% —which owns 116,000 properties in Berlin and is currently the target of an €18 billion takeover bid, equivalent to roughly $21 billion at current exchange rates—and its suitor Vonovia.

China Evergrande Group is facing mounting protests by homebuyers, retail investors and even its own employees, raising the stakes for authorities in Beijing as they try to prevent the property giant’s debt crisis from sparking social unrest, Bloomberg News reported. Police descended on Evergrande’s Shenzhen headquarters late Monday after dozens of people gathered to demand repayments on overdue wealth management products. Protesters numbered in the hundreds on Sunday, Caixin reported.

Empty beer taps in pubs, supermarkets low on Diet Coke, milkshakes missing at McDonald’s: It seems each new day in Britain brings a new notice of scarce products and services as businesses are waylaid by the country’s shortage of truck drivers and other workers, the New York Times reported. The problem extends beyond the most visible parts of the economy. Job vacancies in Britain are about 20 percent higher than their prepandemic levels, and the need for workers has gripped nearly every occupation, including computer programmers, health care assistants and farmworkers.

The U.K. Insolvency Service has announced that temporary measures introduced last year to help viable businesses avoid being forced into unnecessary insolvency during the COVID-19 pandemic will be phased out from October 1, Business-Sale.com reported. The end of the previous legislation will occur alongside the introduction of new measures to help businesses recover. The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act, which came into force in June 2020, introduced several temporary measures designed to help businesses through the COVID-19 crisis.

LATAM Airlines said yesterday that it has received several offers to fund its exit from chapter 11 bankruptcy, each of which are worth more than $5 billion, Reuters reported. LATAM, the largest airline in Latin America, received the offers from creditors and shareholders, according to a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York City. The Santiago, Chile-based company did not reveal the number of offers received or from whom they came, but Delta Air Lines Inc is LATAM’s largest shareholder. Other shareholders include Qatar Airways, with a 10% stake.

Japan Airlines Co. plans to raise about 300 billion yen ($2.7 billion) via subordinated bonds and loans to shore up its capital in case the coronavirus pandemic hurts travel demand longer than it expects, Bloomberg News reported. The Tokyo-based carrier said it secured around 200 billion yen in loans from four Japanese banks and plans to sell 100 billion yen of bonds. The financing is partly a “preventive measure” to counter the long-term business impact of Covid-19, general manager of finance Yuichiro Kito told reporters.

The European Union’s competition watchdog on Friday cleared an injection of Italian government funds into new national flag carrier ITA, and said the company would not be held accountable for illegal state aid given to its predecessor Alitalia, the Associated Press reported. Just a month before ITA takes to the skies, the European Commission — which polices anti-trust and competition issues in the 27-nation EU — said capital totaling 1.35 billion euros ($1.6 billion) that Italy intends to grant the new venture is in line with market conditions and cannot be considered as illegal state aid.