Headlines
Resources Per Region
Romania’s central bank bought bonds on the secondary market this week, triggering a rally in the country’s government debt and prompting the cabinet to sell more debt than planned at domestic auctions, Bloomberg News reported. The bank purchased about 150m lei ($36 million) of local-currency government bonds from commercial lenders on March 8 and 9 in an attempt to rein in a spike in yields since mid-February. It was active for the first time since August, buying notes due July 2025 and January 2028, among others, the people said.
The dedicated bankruptcy court has admitted the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) against BSE-listed Manpasand Beverages Ltd, the Economic Times of India reported. The Ahmedabad bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has appointed Arpan Maheshkumar Shah as Interim Resolution Professional for the company.
Britain’s economy shrank by less than feared in January when the country went back into a coronavirus lockdown, but trade with the European Union was hammered as new post-Brexit rules kicked in, Reuters reported. Gross domestic product was 2.9% lower than in December, the Office for National Statistics said. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a contraction of 4.9% and government bond prices fell as investors took the data as a sign that the Bank of England was less likely to pump more stimulus into the economy.
Read more
Close scrutiny of UK financial firms’ European Union outposts will continue indefinitely, the bloc’s securities watchdog said, as regulators begin a round of new checks on how they are operating, Reuters reported. Hundreds of trading and investment firms from the City of London have set up shop in the EU to avoid disrupting business with the bloc by relocating staff and assets. The costly investment was vindicated by an UK-EU trade deal that left UK financial services largely cut off from the continent after Britain left the EU’s orbit on Dec. 31.
Nigeria plans increased use of sovereign guarantees to fund infrastructure in a bid to reduce the need for raising debt for such projects, Bloomberg News reported. Africa’s largest economy will raise the value of these assurances to 5% of gross domestic product from 1.5% in 2019, Patience Oniha, head of the Debt Management Office, said at a conference in Lagos on Thursday. Nigeria’s public debt, including central bank overdrafts, as a proportion of GDP at 34.4% in 2020, is relatively low compared to peers.
Read more
Nigeria’s state oil company ruled out higher gasoline prices this month, less than a day after the fuel regulator signaled the first increase since November, Bloomberg News reported. The reversal means that government-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., the nation’s sole importer of gasoline, will continue to bear the cost of subsidizing fuel in Africa’s biggest economy. It’s the second time in as many weeks that policy makers have sent out contradictory signals, after the central bank on March 4 set aside plans announced by one of its officials to bar foreigners from some debt auctions.
Read more
India will propose a law banning cryptocurrencies, fining anyone trading in the country or even holding such digital assets, a senior government official told Reuters in a potential blow to millions of investors piling into the red-hot asset class. The bill, one of the world’s strictest policies against cryptocurrencies, would criminalise possession, issuance, mining, trading and transferring crypto-assets, said the official, who has direct knowledge of the plan.
Canadian automation company Promation had been banking on a weaker currency to help it win a new U.S. contract, but a slower pace of vaccinations in Canada could erase that competitive edge, President Darryl Spector said, Reuters reported. Pandemic travel restrictions make it harder for Promation’s technicians to travel across the border to service and repair plant equipment, a drawback when competing against an increasingly vaccinated U.S. workforce. “With a fully vaccinated U.S. supply base, why buy from Canada if you can’t access the labor to support it?,” said Spector.
Read more
India’s markets regulator unveiled new rules late Wednesday that will limit investments by mutual funds in some debt instruments, after investors suffered losses from writedowns on riskier bonds last year, Bloomberg News reported. The regulations, which take effect April 1, relate to debt such as some securities sold by banks which have features that allow losses to be imposed on creditors before equity holders, according to a circular from the Securities & Exchange Board of India.
Norwegian Air submitted its final restructuring offer to creditors on Thursday in what the budget airline said was a major step in its plan to slash debt and reduce its fleet to survive the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported. If approved by enough creditors and Ireland’s High Court, the so-called scheme of arrangement will enable Norwegian to raise new capital and emerge from bankruptcy protection in Ireland and Norway. “This is an important milestone in the process of securing Norwegian’s future,” Chief Executive Jacob Schram said.
Read more