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A war of words has erupted between Qantas boss Alan Joyce and Regional Express (Rex) deputy chairman John Sharp as the two airlines battle over a domestic air travel market recovering quickly from the pandemic, the Australian Financial Review reported. While Mr. Sharp earlier this week argued Qantas might be “technically insolvent”, Mr. Joyce has now questioned whether the former federal transport minister misled the market over the carrier’s financial health.
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The European Union needs to study the rise of special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) but it is too early to say if they are a “bubble”, the executive director designate for EU securities watchdog ESMA said on Thursday. SPACs have begun attracting big names in European finance, with former UniCredit boss Jean-Pierre Mustier teaming up with France’s richest man Bernard Arnault to launch a SPAC that will be listed in Amsterdam and aimed at European financial deals.
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Creditors of Greensill Capital Pty, the Australian parent of the collapsed British supply chain financier, voted on Thursday to liquidate the company, its administrator said, triggering deeper investigations into the conduct of its directors, Reuters reported. Grant Thornton (GT), the liquidator appointed for the Australian parent and its operating companies in Britain, said the majority of 26 creditors owed A$4.6 billion ($3.6 billion) by the collapsed financier voted for liquidation.
Leveraged buyout bids measuring in the double-digit billions, a relative rarity since the financial crisis, have been showing signs of a comeback lately, the Wall Street Journal reported. Earlier this month, private-equity firm CVC Capital Partners submitted a proposal worth more than $20 billion for Japan’s Toshiba Corp., setting off a potential auction. Meanwhile, Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners and Sweden’s EQT AB have teamed up for a bid on Royal KPN KKPNY that could value the Dutch telecommunications company at more than $15 billion.
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One of Turkey’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges said it lacked the financial strength to continue operations, leaving hundreds of thousands of investors fearing their savings have evaporated as authorities sought to locate the company’s 27-year-old founder, who fled the country, Bloomberg News reported. Confusion reigned about how many users of the Thodex exchange were affected and how much money was at stake. In a statement from an unknown location, Thodex Chief Executive Officer Faruk Fatih Ozer promised to repay investors and to return to Turkey to face justice after he did.
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Germany’s finance minister denied any blame for the multi-billion-euro Wirecard fraud on Thursday, pointing the finger at the company and its auditors, EY, for waving the firm’s accounts through for a decade, Reuters reported. Olaf Scholz joins a long list of politicians and officials who have denied responsibility for slipshod oversight and what critical lawmakers see as a pro-Wirecard bias that failed to avert Germany’s biggest post-war fraud.
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There is currently race among large Indian retailers to bring tens of millions of small mom-and-pop stores, known as kiranas, into their supply chains, the Nikkei Asia reported. India's retail market was pegged at $793 billion in sales in the fiscal year ended March 2020 and is expected to grow to nearly $1.5 trillion by 2030, according to the latest report by retail consultancy Technopak Advisors and the National Association of Software and Services Companies. The country is home to about 20 million kiranas, which account for 88% of the brick-and-mortar market.
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Four years ago, Andrea Agnelli stood in the 74,000-seat soccer arena in Cardiff and witnessed his team, Juventus Football Club SpA, get smashed by Real Madrid in the Champions League final. As painful as that 4-1 defeat might have been for Agnelli, the offspring of Italy’s preeminent industrial dynasty walked away with a useful lesson: to win, surround yourself with the best players and teams. The next year, Agnelli, 45, followed through with a bold 100 million-euro ($120 million) bet, buying Portuguese superstar Ronaldo from Real Madrid.
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Households in Britain, especially poorer ones, are far more likely to have suffered a severe income shock during the coronavirus pandemic over the past year than their counterparts in France and Germany, a well-respected British-based think tank said Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. The Resolution Foundation also said that households in the U.K. are also more likely to have run up more debt in response to the financial shockwaves emanating from the pandemic. In a report, which was entitled “After Shocks” and was supported by U.S.
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In the March quarter 2021, personal insolvency fell 52.9% compared to the March quarter 2020, according to the latest personal insolvency statistics released by Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA). There were 2,545 personal insolvencies in the March quarter 2021, a 52.9% fall compared to the March quarter 2020. There were falls in all states and territories. The number of personal insolvencies rose 5.8% compared to the December quarter 2020. By type of personal insolvency: