Headlines

Malaysia’s now-defunct 1MDB state fund is suing units of Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan and Coutts & Co. to recover billions in alleged losses from a corruption scandal at the fund, court documents seen by Reuters showed. 1MDB is claiming $1.11 billion from Deutsche Bank (Malaysia) Bhd, $800 million from J.P. Morgan (Switzerland) Ltd and $1.03 billion from a Swiss-based Coutts unit, and interest payments from all of them, according to the lawsuit.

Nomura Holdings Inc. announced business partnerships at home, Australia and New Zealand as Japan’s biggest brokerage seeks to move past a $2.9 billion hit from the implosion of Archegos Capital Management, Bloomberg News reported. Nomura signed an agreement with three regional Japanese banks to set up a joint venture to provide remote financial consulting services. It also struck up an alliance with investment bank Jarden Securities Ltd. to provide services such as stock and bond underwriting for clients in Australia and New Zealand, it said in separate statements on Monday.

Landlords have lost a legal challenge against the restructuring at high street fashion chain New Look, in a major setback to their efforts to curb what they regard as misuse of insolvency laws, the Financial Times reported. A group of four landlords, including Land Securities and British Land plus the new owners of Manchester’s giant Trafford Centre, had challenged New Look’s use of a company voluntary arrangement to reset its rents for the second time in three years and to write off rent arrears.

If Sweden’s government gets its way, Bromma airport on the western edge of Stockholm will shut down and be used to build around 30,000 new homes, helping to ease a housing shortage that has sent prices in the capital soaring. Sweden is not alone in seeking innovative ways to boost the supply of housing and, ultimately, reduce a build-up of mortgage debt that threatens the wider economy, Reuters reported. In many big European cities, prices have been rising for decades, pushed higher by a cocktail of low interest rates, land shortages and construction that cannot keep pace with demand.

Australia’s fiscal authorities are taking a leaf out of U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s playbook in deploying spending to push the economy toward maximum employment, a stance that keeps policy aligned with the Reserve Bank, Bloomberg News reported. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says he will deliver a “jobs budget” on Tuesday that’s expected to boost spending on roads and railways to support hiring and extend income-tax breaks for low and middle income earners to keep them spending.

CDC Group, the U.K. government’s development investment arm, is taking a step to help bridge what it estimates is a funding gap of as much as $31 billion that Africa’s agriculture and food industry faces each year, Bloomberg News reported. The 73-year-old institution is channeling $100 million to small-holder African farmers through export and trading company ETG, and is seeking other partners to help it deploy more capital to the sector.

Lufthansa is working with Deutsche Bank and Bank of America to sound out investors about a capital increase worth roughly 3 billion euros ($3.7 billion), possibly as soon as June, Reuters reported. The final size and timing of the rights issue to repay state aid Lufthansa received during the pandemic will be subject to market conditions and the German airline is expected to opt for a June/July or September/October window.

The Bank of England does not expect to see a wave of bankruptcies among British firms when the government ends its coronavirus emergency support for the economy, BoE Chief Economist Andy Haldane said on Friday, Reuters reported. Many debts racked up recently by companies are spread over long durations “which increases the chances of them being able to be paid back and therefore bankruptcy is not picking up very much from current relatively subdued levels,” Haldane said.

Administrators to collapsed firm Greensill Capital’s UK business said it had $17.7 billion in assets under management at March 8 of which $3.7 billion has been collected as of April 16, Reuters reported. The supply chain finance firm, which lent money to firms by buying their invoices at a discount, collapsed in March 2021 after insurers pulled their cover. Creditors of Greensill Capital Pty, the Australian parent of the British company, voted in April to liquidate that company.

The National Company Law Tribunal’s (NCLT) Delhi bench has appointed an Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) to start a Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) against Ahluwalia Contracts (India) Ltd., the Hindu Business Line reported. This follows a prayer moved by New Delhi-based A2 Interiors Products Pvt Ltd, alleging pending payments of ₹14.10 crore for various civil and electrical works done for the Ahluwalia Contracts, a civil contractor in the construction industry.