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China's market regulator has begun an investigation into suspected anti-competitive practices by KE Holdings, the country's biggest housing broker whose top backer is Tencent Holdings, Reuters reported. The investigation is the latest into China's big so-called "platform" companies that match sellers and buyers, several of which have been accused by regulators of exploiting consumers.
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Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., the beleaguered South African state power utility, reduced its debt by almost a fifth after repaying matured loans and benefiting from a more favorable exchange rate, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said, Bloomberg News reported. Debt fell to 401 billion rand ($29 billion) at the end of March, from 484 billion rand a year earlier, Gordhan said in a webcast speech to lawmakers on Tuesday. The utility has yet to release its financial results for the year.
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Germany’s economy contracted more than expected in the first quarter amid coronavirus lockdown measures, according to statistics released Tuesday, but a leading indicator showed that businesses’ optimism is rising as the pace of vaccinations increases, the Associated Press reported. The Federal Statistical Office said that the first quarter gross domestic product in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, dropped by 1.8% over the fourth quarter of 2020, according to figures adjusted for price, seasonal and calendar factors. The office’s preliminary estimate had been a drop of 1.7%.
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Germany's two biggest listed landlords Vonovia and Deutsche Wohnen have agreed to join forces in an 18 billion euro ($22 billion) deal they hope will defuse tensions over soaring rents ahead of general elections in September, Reuters reported. The country's biggest merger this year will create a European real estate giant with 550,000 apartments. It comes as Deutsche Wohnen has become the focus of popular anger in Berlin over tenant rights and affordable housing.
Before the pandemic, the Caribbean was the world’s most tourism-reliant region, according to recent calculations by the World Travel Tourism Council. Made up of dozens of sovereign nations, territories and dependencies that often reacted disparately to the virus, the region was struck unequally by the coronavirus, the New York Times reported. Some islands were walloped by staggering caseloads, while infections on others sometimes dwindled to single digits.
The government leaders of Poland and the neighboring Czech Republic held intensive talks Tuesday in an attempt to solve a years-long dispute that resurfaced recently over a Polish coal mine, the Associated Press reported. The Czech government says the brown coal Turow mine, located in southwestern Poland, near the Czech and German borders, is draining groundwater from communities and causing other environmental harm to Czech citizens.
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Banca Ifis Rescues Italian Casualty of Greensill Collapse
Italy’s Banca Ifis has bought the healthy assets of Aigis Banca for 1 euro ($1.22) after Aigis was forced into liquidation by the insolvency of Germany’s Greensill Bank, Reuters reported. German financial services regulator BaFin in March shut down Greensill Bank AG, which was part of Greensill Capital, the collapsed London-based supply-chain finance group owned by Australian financier Lex Greensill.
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GFG Alliance is putting seven of its U.K. plants up for sale as it seeks to reach an agreement with Credit Suisse Group AG to stave off insolvencies of some of its units, Bloomberg News reported. Owner Sanjeev Gupta made “significant progress” in weekend talks with the Swiss lender’s asset-management arm to resolve GFG’s exposure with Credit Suisse, the metals group said in an emailed statement Monday. GFG has been seeking to raise new financing to replace some of the $5 billion of loans provided by Greensill Capital since the London-based financial firm collapsed in March.
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A Singapore court has approved a freeze on up to $3.5 billion of assets of the family behind collapsed Hin Leong Trading Pte Ltd, boosting the prospect of debt recovery from the former oil trading empire that counts some of the world’s biggest banks among its creditors, Reuters reported. Hin Leong was wound up in March after failing in a year-long effort to restructure more than $3 billion in debts after the COVID-19-led oil crash laid bare huge losses.
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Pakistan is closing in on a deal with bilateral creditors that would tie debt relief to the achievement of biodiversity goals, government officials said, Bloomberg News reported. The South Asian nation is working with lender countries on a debt-for-nature swap program, which would see debt relief in return for binding commitments to achieve conservation targets. An official letter of intent could be announced as soon as World Environment Day on June 5, which Pakistan is hosting this year.
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