Headlines

Unigel, the struggling Brazilian fertilizer maker, obtained approval from a majority of creditors including Pacific Investment Management Co. for its out-of-court restructuring plan, Bloomberg News reported. Holders of more than 50% of its debt backed the proposal, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak about it. The company had until Monday to gather support from more than 50% of creditors and avoid a bankruptcy filing. Unigel didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

China Vanke has secured a fresh loan that takes its total borrowings this month to more than US$1 billion, part of the state-backed developer’s ongoing efforts to temper liquidity pressures as it seeks to finish housing projects, the Wall Street Journal reported. Vanke, one of China’s few major developers yet to default in the country’s ongoing property crisis, said in a stock-exchange filing on Monday that it had obtained a loan for 1.2 billion yuan ($165.9 million) from Bank of China to use for development projects in Changzhou, a city in Jiangsu province.

China will control the intertwined risks in the property sector, local government debt and small local financial institutions, Vice Premier He Lifeng said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. China is seeking to restore confidence in its financial system, which is mired in a property crisis and mounting local government debt, as the economy faces a host of challenges. The country will also seek to prevent systemic risks and crack down on illegal financial activities, state broadcaster CCTV quoted He as saying.

The parent company of Thames Water is exploring all options with a group of creditors after a series of board resignations, Bloomberg News reported. Two directors resigned from Thames Water (Kemble) Finance and several quit from Kemble Water Finance Limited, two of the units that make up the firm’s complex holding structure. Paul O’Donnell and Nick Pike, both restructuring experts, have been appointed to help engage with creditors and assess options for the company, according to company statements on Monday.

The International Monetary Fund warned that the UK Treasury needs to find £30 billion ($38.2 billion) of savings to stabilize its debt burden, undercutting Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s ambition to reduce taxes before the next election, Bloomberg News reported. The estimate released with the institution’s annual health check into the economy also upgraded the outlook for growth and predicted a “soft landing.” Even so, advice on the scale of the UK’s budget gap highlighted the strain on the public finances already struggling to cope with demands on health, defense and social care.

Argentina risks struggling to service some of its debt if it’s forced to pay out $1.5 billion in damages a UK court awarded to investors last year, lawyers for the South American nation have warned, Bloomberg News reported. Hedge funds including Palladian Partners LP last year won a UK High Court ruling that Argentina must compensate investors for losses in the country’s growth-linked securities after it changed the method of calculating gross domestic product.

Investment banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are pitching broadly syndicated refinancings of some of the riskiest types of private credit, in the latest sign that Wall Street is trying to poach back business from direct lenders, Bloomberg News reported. Bankers in Europe are speaking with buyout firms about options for private payment-in-kind debt their companies took on when broadly syndicated markets were much more volatile and expensive. Now that conditions have improved, institutional lenders are becoming increasingly assertive.

Artificial intelligence could be fundamentally disruptive but help boost productivity in Britain's economy, posing a challenge to regulators who should be open to new rule-making approaches, a Bank of England (BoE) policymaker said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Britain has so far taken a cautious approach to formulating bespoke rules for AI, unlike the European Union, whose members on Tuesday formally backed landmark new rules that will likely set a benchmark for other countries.

Canada’s annual rate of core inflation eased for a fourth straight month, bolstering a case for policymakers to begin an easing cycle in the coming months, but a slight increase in the monthly pace may keep a June rate cut from being a certainty, Bloomberg News reported. The Bank of Canada’s two core inflation measures slowed in April to an average yearly pace of 2.75%, down from 3.05% a month earlier, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday in Ottawa. That’s slightly slower than the 2.8% expected in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

The Reserve Bank of Australia has warned that risks around the inflation outlook have risen, while uncertainty around the economy’s trajectory more broadly remains highly elevated, the Wall Street Journal reported. Minutes of the central bank’s May 6 to May 7 policy meeting showed that while it said there were increased risks that inflation will stay higher for longer than expected, the policy-setting board decided to keep interest rates on hold to avoid “excessive fine-tuning” of policy settings.