Headlines

Britain is set to secure an exemption for financial services from a new global tax system which was agreed by the Group of Seven economies to squeeze more money out of multinationals like Google, the Financial Times said on Wednesday. Reuters had reported earlier this month that British finance minister Rishi Sunak was pushing for financial service firms to be exempt to help protect the City of London's largest banks from paying more tax.

The British government introduced a new exemption to its quarantine rules on Tuesday for business travelers “bringing significant economic benefit” to England, but the move is unlikely to quell frustrations that certain travel routes in and out of Britain remain effectively shut, the New York Times reported. The exemption has strict criteria and applies only to executives whose work supports at least 500 British jobs. It is much tighter than one that was in place for about six weeks from early December, when travelers needed to support only 50 jobs in Britain.

Suppliers to Walmart, Target, Amazon.com and other major retailers told Reuters they are placing holiday orders for Chinese-made merchandise weeks earlier this year, as a global shipping backlog threatens to leave many gift buyers empty-handed this Christmas shopping season. Reuters surveyed nearly a dozen suppliers and retailers of everything from toys to computer equipment in the United States and Europe.

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded China Evergrande Group’s credit rating by one notch to B2, the second downgrade by a global ratings agency in less than two weeks, Bloomberg News reported. Concern has been building over the troubled Shenzhen-based developer, which on Wednesday tried to reassure investors about its financial health, saying it has reduced its net debt-to-equity ratio to below 100%, as required by Chinese regulators. Evergrande has also said it pared total borrowings to about 570 billion yuan ($88 billion) from 717 billion yuan in December.

Credit Suisse Group AG is considering centralising the management of its bankers to the world's wealthy, reversing a regional structure put in place six years ago, as the scandal-plagued Swiss bank looks for ways to tighten controls and improve operations, Reuters reported. The bank’s wealth management business is split, residing in three separate divisions -- the international business, Swiss business and a separate Asia-Pacific unit. Some executives felt that separation had not worked well and combining the businesses into one group would offer benefits, one of the sources said.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund announced that Sudan has met the initial criteria for over $50 billion in foreign debt relief, another step for the East African nation to rejoin the international community after nearly three decades of isolation, the Associated Press reported. The two international financial institutions said in a joint statement on Tuesday that Sudan “has taken the necessary steps to begin receiving debt relief,” which amounts to over 90% of the nation’s total external debt.

Namibian President Hage Geingob on Tuesday appointed an 11-member Business Rescue Task Force to review business and insolvency legislation with the aim of rescuing businesses in financial distress, Reuters reported. The Southern African nation, whose mining and tourism dependent economy has been ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, is in the midst of a deadly third wave of infections that is threatening to take more businesses under.

A consortium led by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and the Jiangsu provincial government are nearing a deal to buy a stake in the retail arm of Chinese billionaire Zhang Jindong’s Suning empire, according to people familiar with the matter, the latest domino to fall in Beijing’s effort to clean up its heavily indebted conglomerates, Bloomberg News reported. The unit, Suning.com Co., could make an announcement as soon as this week.

Budget carrier Norwegian Air showed poor judgement when it paid bonuses to top management just weeks after emerging from government-backed bankruptcy proceedings, Norway’s industry minister said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Having shed thousands of jobs during the pandemic and forced creditors to swap billions of dollars in debt for stock in the slimmed-down airline, Norwegian completed a court-ordered financial restructuring in late May.

Devas Multimedia Pvt., a company seeking over $1.2 billion it won in international arbitration from India, has joined Cairn Energy Plc in seeking to seize Air India Ltd.’s assets abroad, Bloomberg News reported. Calling the flagship airline an “alter ego” of the Indian state and therefore liable for the sovereign’s debts, Devas filed a petition in New York asking Air India to pay the amount or forfeit its U.S. property including planes, cargo handling equipment and artwork.