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As Western economies roar back to life, a fresh wave of Covid-19 clusters in Asia—where vaccination campaigns remain in their early stages—is creating new bottlenecks in the global supply chain, threatening to push up prices and weigh on the post-pandemic recovery, the Wall Street Journal reported.
China's banking and insurance regulator issued rules on Tuesday on wealth management products for cash, tightening oversight of the $1 trillion market, Reuters reported. China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission banned such products from investing in stocks and convertible bonds and said the leverage level of each product should not exceed 120% normally, according to a statement on the regulator's website. The regulator also asked commercial banks and wealth management companies to conduct stress tests on such products to make sure they could deal with urgent redemptions.
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Nightclub and music venue operators can apply to access a £13 million Scottish Government emergency fund from next week which aims to help businesses “prevent insolvency or significant job losses due to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Scottish Licensed Trade News reported. he second round of the Culture Organisations and Venues Recovery Fund, which is being administered by Creative Scotland alongside a £12m second round of the Performing Arts Venues Relief Fund, opens for applications on 17th June and close on 24th June.
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Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance is close to an agreement to settle a dispute with a Hong Kong-based asset manager regarding unpaid debts, Bloomberg News reported. GFG is close to a settlement with TransAsia Private Capital, which was pressing to take control of a block of shares in Simec Atlantis Energy Ltd., a tidal-power developer owned by GFG, the person said, asking not to be identified as the matter is confidential. A GFG unit owns 43% of U.K.-listed Simec.
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Lebanon’s currency hit a new low on Sunday, as the country’s economic and political crisis worsened with no apparent solutions in the near future, the Associated Press reported. The currency has lost more than 90% of its value since October 2019, when anti-government protests erupted. Inflation and prices of basic goods have skyrocketed in the country, which imports more than 80% of its basic goods. The U.S. dollar hit 15,300 Lebanese pounds on the black market, a level not seen since March. The official rate still stands at 1,515 pounds to the dollar.
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Even as Europe’s economic outlook is rapidly improving, European Central Bank policymakers decided on Thursday to maintain their “very accommodative” monetary stance, the New York Times reported. Governments are lifting lockdown restrictions and the vaccine rollout has sped up, which has led to a bounce in the services industry and “ongoing dynamism” in manufacturing, Christine Lagarde, president of the central bank, told reporters at a news conference in Frankfurt.
President Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to counter the influence of autocratic states during their first in-person meeting on Thursday and looked to smooth over disagreements regarding a complex arrangement to manage trade and preserve peace in Northern Ireland after Brexit, the Wall Street Journal reported. Ahead of the Group of Seven meeting this week, the two leaders backed a wide-ranging document that charts a path forward from a global pandemic that has killed millions, as the virus continues spreading in some parts of the world.
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UK subprime lender Amigo Holdings said today it was considering all options for the company including a revised scheme of arrangement or insolvency, after a court last month rejected its rescue plan, RTÉ reported. Amigo said in a statement that it was continuing to engage with the UK Financial Conduct Authority to find a way forward. However, based on the expected volume of complaints from current and past customers, the value of Amigo's assets would be less than its liabilities without an appropriate scheme of arrangement to deal with complaints, it said.
South Africa’s government is set to announce that it has found a strategic equity partner for state-owned carrier South African Airways, Bloomberg News reported. Details of the announcement are expected on Friday morning. Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan was scheduled to brief the media on the matter Thursday, before postponing to the following day. The expected announcement comes about six weeks after the airline emerged from lengthy bankruptcy proceedings, having reduced its workforce by almost 80% and cut liabilities.
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LATAM Airlines Group, the region’s largest carrier, said on Wednesday that it had sought to extend until September the deadline to present its restructuring plan as part of the bankruptcy protection process initiated in 2020, Reuters reported. LATAM filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. in May of last year, hammered by the world travel crisis generated by the coronavirus pandemic. At the time, it was the world’s largest airline to take such action due to COVID-19.
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