Headlines

Norwegian Air has won approval from creditors in Norway to restructure its debt and an Oslo court has approved the plan, the airline said on Monday, clearing the way for it to raise new capital and emerge from bankruptcy next month, Reuters reported. Financed largely by debt, Norwegian Air grew rapidly, serving routes across Europe and flying to North and South America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East before the COVID-19 pandemic plunged the airline into crisis.

The Indian economy’s recovery is likely to be shaped like a K rather than a V, as rising inequality is poised to hit consumption and growth prospects, the country’s former central bank governor said, Bloomberg News reported. “An important consequence of the pandemic has been the sharpening of inequalities,” Duvvuri Subbarao said in an April 9 interview. “Growing inequalities are not just a moral issue.

Retailers, restaurants and theatres in India’s richest state are reeling under the impact of harsh restrictions imposed last week by authorities scrambling to curb a resurgence in COVID-19 cases, Reuters reported. The western state of Maharashtra, home to India’s financial capital Mumbai, has been the worst hit in the pandemic, accounting for about a quarter of the country’s 13.5 million case load. Last week, the local government shut down restaurants, bars, gyms, theatres and non-essential stores in a blow to businesses that had barely recovered from the nationwide lockdown last year.

Tenured professors at Laurentian University expect to know today whether they will be laid off as part of an extraordinary restructuring aimed at cutting costs at the insolvent and debt-burdened school, the Globe and Mail reported. For many professors, the secretive process, in which negotiations have been held behind closed doors, has been a cruel and uncertain time. Laurentian said a year ago that the pandemic threatened to tip its finances toward a crisis, but in the postwar era no Canadian public university has come through something of this nature.

Sweden’s economy is poised for a sharper rebound than the government previously expected as its manufacturers make a strong comeback, Bloomberg News reported. Gross domestic product will grow 3.2% this year, compared with the 3% predicted in December, Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson told reporters in Stockholm on Monday. Next year, the expansion is seen at 3.8%, up from the previous forecast of 3.7%.

When Credit Suisse Group AG announced a $4.7 billion hit from the Archegos Capital Management meltdown, there was a silver lining: The rest of its investment bank did so well in the quarter, the overall pretax loss would only be $1 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported. The situation exposes the bank’s dilemma. Its investment bank, which takes on more risk, has been its profit engine, making up for its larger, slower-growing wealth-management business.

The speed of Djibouti’s economic recovery from a contraction last year hinges on how soon conflict ends in neighboring Ethiopia, Finance Minister Ilyas Dawaleh said, Bloomberg News reported. “The recent and escalating conflict in Ethiopia is worsening prospects for regional peace, trade and undermines regional cooperation,” Dawaleh said in an emailed response to questions on April 10.

China’s fast-moving campaign to curb the power of internet giants has hit its latest mark: Ant Group, the fintech sister company of the e-commerce behemoth Alibaba, the New York Times reported. Ant announced on Monday that it would undertake a sweeping, government-ordered overhaul of its business to allay regulators’ concerns about the way it competes with rivals, its large-scale collection of user data and the risks its business may pose to the wider financial system.

Samarco Mineracao SA, a joint venture between Brazilian miner Vale SA and BHP Group Ltd, has filed for bankruptcy protection to prevent creditors’ claims from affecting its operations, Vale said in a Friday securities filing, Reuters reported. The collapse of a dam at the Samarco mine complex in 2015 killed 19 people and severely polluted the Doce River with mining waste, one of Brazil’s worst environmental disasters. The facility, which resumed production in December, is the focus of significant litigation from bondholders holding nearly $5 billion in debt.

Stoneway Capital Ltd., the owner of four power plants in Argentina, filed for bankruptcy in New York on Wednesday after an Argentine Supreme Court ruling against the company prolonged the closure of one of its generation facilities, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Stoneway missed an interest payment on March 1, 2020, and soon after entered forbearance agreements with its creditors, according to a declaration filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York by David Mack, Stoneway’s sole director.