Headlines
Resources Per Region
Japan needs to double the nearly $700 billion it’s already budgeted in extra spending to ensure a recovery from the pandemic, says an influential ruling party lawmaker who helped shape the country’s economic strategy, Bloomberg News reported. Kozo Yamamoto, who played a key role in crafting the fiscal and monetary framework known as Abenomics and is readying new proposals for Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, says Japan needs another big dose of fiscal medicine that’s as ambitious as the aid bill just passed in the U.S.
Read more
Under founder Jack Ma, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. had regulators and local officials in its corner as it grew into a Chinese version of Amazon.com Inc. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent crackdown on the empire of China’s best-known entrepreneur has put an end to that, the Wall Street Journal reported. Since late last year, Alibaba has been in Beijing’s crosshairs, along with its financial affiliate Ant Group Co. Regulators already have come down hard on Ant, which they consider a risk to the financial system, forcing it to make changes that will severely hamper its prospects.
Read more
Ares SSG, a leading Asia-Pacific alternative asset manager, announced today that certain of its funds have completed the acquisition of all underlying assets of Altico Capital India Limited, an NBFC which used to provide loans and financing to India's real estate sector before experiencing financial difficulties in 2019, according to a press release. The acquisition marks the first resolution of a defaulting NBFC outside India's Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and represents Ares SSG's single largest investment in India to date.
Read more
Credit Suisse faces questions from regulators and insurers as it grapples with the fallout from the collapse of $10 billion worth of funds linked to British financial services firm Greensill Capital, Reuters reported. The Swiss bank has hired external firms to help with their inquiries in the wake of Greensill Capital’s insolvency. Greensill’s insolvency has sent ramifications through the world of trade finance, threatening companies which relied on its platform to receive faster payment for the goods they had supplied to larger entities.
Two developments in the China Fishery Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing have given William Brandt, the trustee overseeing the sale of the company’s Peruvian assets, hope that he will get a deal done, Seafood Source reported. On 19 February, Brandt filed a proposed settlement agreement with China Fishery Group’s court-appointed liquidator, FTI Consulting, which had sued the company, arguing it had used ill-gotten earnings to purchase Copeinca in 2013.
U.S. private equity firm Blackstone in 2016 unplugged a Texas power plant that it owned from the state’s grid in a bet that it could make a fortune as the only American-based generator selling electricity exclusively to Mexico. That bet has gone south, Reuters reported. Nearly five years later, Blackstone’s gas-fired plant, Frontera Holdings LLC, is struggling to exit bankruptcy after burning investors holding nearly $1 billion of its debt - the victim of a succession of problems ranging from a power market collapse in Mexico in 2020 to last month’s severe cold snap.
Read more
The administration costs of collapsed mini-bond provider London Capital & Finance (LCF) are expected to total £7.7m by next January, P2P Finance News reported. The latest progress report from joint administrators Smith & Williamson revealed that fees have already reached £5.6m. By 29 January 2022, the end of the third year of the administration, costs are expected to hit £7.7m, according to the document filed with Companies House.
Read more
Inside the prime minister’s office in the Caribbean nation of Sint Maarten, the walls of paradise were closing in. In the former Dutch colony renowned for fish stews and rum cocktails on Great Bay Beach, the coronavirus pandemic had ground tourism to a halt, sparking a financial crisis akin to the aftermath of a hurricane. By December, Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs said, public coffers were so low that she didn’t know how she could continue to cover the government payroll, the Washington Post reported. She needed a financial lifeline.
Read more
Greensill Capital’s talks to sell parts of its operating business to Athene Holding Ltd. were derailed after one of the firm’s key technology partners received funding that allows it to finance Greensill’s most creditworthy clients directly, Bloomberg News reported. Taulia, a financial technology company that had worked closely with Greensill, landed a $6 billion liquidity facility from banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co. Taulia’s clients had an immediate need for liquidity because of Greensill’s insolvency.
U.K. metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta is negotiating a standstill agreement with Greensill Capital to give his companies breathing space over payments on billions of dollars worth of debt, the Wall Street Journal reported. Greensill is among Mr. Gupta’s biggest lenders, but filed for insolvency protection on Monday. Its troubles have prompted Mr. Gupta to fly abroad to seek new sources of financing, while governments and workers in several countries are seeking clarity on the fallout on his network of steel, aluminum and energy companies.
Read more