Headlines

Tycoon Sanjeev Gupta’s commodities empire is being investigated by Britain’s Serious Fraud Office in a probe that encompasses the conglomerate’s links to collapsed lender Greensill Capital, the SFO said on Friday, Reuters reported. The probe piles pressure on Gupta, who has been scrambling to refinance his international web of businesses in steel, aluminium and energy after supply chain finance firm Greensill filed for insolvency in March.

China’s central bank injected medium-term cash into the financial system, in a push to keep borrowing costs low as the economy recovers from the virus pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. The People’s Bank of China added 100 billion yuan ($15.5 billion) of one-year funds with its medium-term lending facility on Monday, matching the amount coming due in a move that was expected by analysts. The authorities kept the interest rate unchanged at 2.95%.

The group of rich government creditors known as the Paris Club is willing to delay a $2.4 billion debt payment from Argentina due this month if the nation meets certain conditions, potentially averting a damaging default, Bloomberg News reported. The club will spare Argentina from default if it misses the May 31 payment in the hope that the country can rework a $45 billion credit with the International Monetary Fund, said one of the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private.

Bankruptcies in Alberta dropped dramatically during the first 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, but this spring’s recent uptick in insolvencies could be a sign of things to come, the Calgary Herald reported. Across Canada, business and consumer bankruptcies both dropped to record lows during COVID-19, with Alberta being no exception. Despite the province being hit by the double whammy of a pandemic-induced recession and slumping oil and gas prices, consumer insolvency filings in Alberta were 27 per cent lower in the 12-month period ending March 2021 than they were the year before.

Sasol Ltd. agreed to sell a 30% stake in a natural gas pipeline running from Mozambique to South Africa for as much as 5.1 billion rand ($361 million) in order to pay down debt, Bloomberg News reported. The deal rounds out an accelerated asset-sale program that has helped Sasol reduce borrowings that ballooned amid cost overruns at a giant U.S. chemicals project and call off a proposed $2 billion share sale. The company started hunting for a buyer for its pipeline shares last year as it examined ways to bolster its finances amid mounting pressure from creditors.

Dan Barker had barely finished rejoicing that London’s “mad umbrella shop” had survived the pandemic when his wife broke some bad news: The “mad sailor shop” had not, the Wall Street Journal reported. Next month, Arthur Beale Ltd., a nearly 500-year-old business that sells maritime supplies from central London, is set to close a store famed for its elaborate window displays and eccentric interior.

Canadian consumer insolvencies surged by nearly 23 per cent month-over-month in March, according to data released by the Office of Superintendent of Bankruptcy (OSB) yesterday, BNN Bloomberg reported. That increase marked the largest one-month jump in new filing activity in more than a decade as some consumers simply hit a wall when it came to staving off a bankruptcy. Several factors led to the month-over-month increase, including consumers running out of income supports, the return-to-work trend, resumption of wage garnishments, and the courts gradually returning to more normal activities.

Russia’s debt chiefs are working on a mechanism that will allow the government to retire costly ruble bonds sold to raise emergency funds during the coronavirus pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. “The goal is to restore the right structure of the portfolio so that in the next crisis, government debt can be used to conduct an active economic policy again,” Deputy Finance Minister Timur Maksimov said in an interview. The ministry is considering possible funding sources for the buybacks, he said, without elaborating on the timing or the amount of money that might be earmarked.

Ministers will crack down on company directors seeking to dissolve their businesses to avoid repaying creditors in a bid to prevent the loophole being exploited to write off state-backed emergency Covid-19 loans, the Financial Times reported. The Insolvency Service will be given beefed up powers to investigate and sanction directors found to have abused the process. The measures, which are part of bill put before parliament on Wednesday, will also give the government agency retrospective powers.

Months after sweeping changes to insolvency laws, the budget revealed the government will re-examine what should happen when businesses go bust, ABC.net reported. Robyn Erskine, partner at insolvency firm Brooke Bird, said that it was disturbing the government was again raking over the systems used when businesses need to be wound up. "They're back having a look at that regime, only months after the introduction, and that creates uncertainty in the marketplace," she argued.