Headlines

Japan’s banking regulator is surveying regional lenders on how local businesses are coping with new restrictions to contain COVID-19, as it seeks to forestall a spike in bankruptcies, Reuters reported. The survey by the Financial Services Agency (FSA) follows the government’s roll-out of state-of-emergency measures last month that could destabilise regional economies. While policymakers stress Japan’s banking system remains stable as a whole, the move underscores their concern over the prolonged and widening damage the coronavirus pandemic is inflicting on companies and banks.

Japan’s Topix stock benchmark climbed to a three-decade high on Monday, drawing even more attention to its future amid plans for a sweeping market reform, Bloomberg News reported. The Tokyo Stock Exchange is set to undergo a once-in-a-generation shakeup in little over a year. Japan Exchange Group Inc., which owns the bourse, plans to cut the number of market segments, apply new listing criteria and turn five confusing, overlapping divisions into three simpler sections: blue-chips, start-ups, and the rest.

Pressure is mounting on companies whose behavior could pose a risk to China’s financial system. HNA Group, the vast Chinese conglomerate that threw tens of billions of dollars at trophy businesses around the world, is nearing the biggest corporate collapse in recent Chinese history, offering a glimpse of how Beijing treats its most powerful entrepreneurs, the New York Times reported. HNA’s insolvency is the largest China has seen since the country first began using its bankruptcy law in 2007, according to Michelle Luo, a bankruptcy lawyer at Hui Ye law firm.

New Zealand is clamping down on property investors in an attempt to rein in spiraling house prices, Bloomberg News reported. The central bank said Tuesday that it will reinstate mortgage lending restrictions on March 1 and tighten them further for investors from May 1.

Germany faces a wave of dealership bankruptcies unless car showrooms are allowed to reopen soon, the ZDK industry association said, Automotive News Europe reported. Showrooms have been shut since mid-December when the German government tightened measures to slow rising cases of the coronavirus. "The situation in automobile retail becomes more difficult with each passing week," Thomas Peckruhn, ZDK vice president, said in a statement. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will chair a meeting on Feb.

Luxembourg’s investment fund industry is a financial “black box” that helps people launder illicit money and avoid tax, according to an investigation published on Monday whose findings were rejected by the EU nation, Reuters reported. The OpenLux investigation by journalists from a group of media organisations, including Le Monde, Le Soir, the Miami Herald and Sueddeutsche Zeitung, sifted through four million documents and records on 260,000 companies linked to Luxembourg’s 4.5 trillion euro ($5.4 trillion) investment funds sector between 1955 and 2020.

Consumer spending declined last month as households cut back after Christmas and as the Covid lockdown reduced shopping opportunities, the Irish Times reported. Total spending fell 14 per cent year on year, with increased sales of digital content and spending on home-related goods failing to offset big declines in hospitality, travel and clothing. Figures compiled by fintech Revolut show spending in bars was down 94 per cent compared with January 2020, while expenditure in hotels and restaurants fell 86 per cent and 70 per cent respectively.

Seadrill Ltd, the rig operator controlled by billionaire John Fredriksen, filed for bankruptcy protection for its Asian units after the economic downturn triggered by the coronavirus pandemic worsened a crisis in offshore oil drilling, Bloomberg News reported. The filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Texas is the second within four years by the driller that was once the industry’s largest by market value. The filing covers Seadrill GCC Operations, Asia Offshore Drilling Ltd., Asia Offshore Rig 1 Ltd., Asia Offshore Rig 2 Ltd.