Headlines

New rules from a major Japanese financial industry group to encourage transparency in the corporate bond market took effect this year, with the first debt sales under the guidelines set for Friday, Bloomberg News reported. Japan Securities Dealers Association--which comprises about 500 securities firms, banks, and other financial institutions--put the rules into force on Jan. 1. They require banks underwriting bond deals of over 10 billion yen ($97 million) to disclose to issuers the names and order sizes of major buyers and any investors who bought 1 billion yen or more.

Rising corporate debt and the prospect of further Covid-19 lockdowns pose a systemic risk to France’s financial system that may rise in the coming months, according to the country’s central bank, Bloomberg News reported. Debts of non-financial companies are now the greatest vulnerability in the system, the Bank of France said in its semi-annual review of financial risks. While the second lockdown starting in November didn’t hit some companies as severely as the first, a slow economic recovery will make it tough for some to pay off debts built up since the start of the crisis.

The parent company of Malaysia Airlines said on Thursday it was nearing the end of a debt restructuring process which it hopes will be completed by the end of the first quarter of this year, Reuters reported. Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG) said it was in talks with around 40 creditors and lessors to take a haircut in its 16-billion-ringgit ($3.99 billion) debt restructuring plan, adding it was confident it could achieve a “win-win” result for all.

Ryanair slashed its annual traffic forecast by around 5 million passengers on Thursday, saying fresh lockdowns in Britain and Ireland targeting a highly contagious new variant of COVID-19 would leave the countries with “few, if any” flights, Reuters reported. The Irish low-cost carrier, Europe’s largest, also harshly criticised public health measures, saying Ireland’s travel curbs were “inexplicable and ineffective” and called on the country and Britain to accelerate the pace of vaccine rollouts.

AMC Entertainment Inc. is in talks with Apollo Global Management Inc. and other top creditors over a potential financing deal backed by the cinema chain’s European assets, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. AMC, the world’s largest movie theater company, is negotiating with lenders including Apollo, Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP, and Ares Management Corp. to expand the line of credit available to the company’s U.K.-based Odeon Cinemas Group subsidiary.

Cinepolis de Mexico SA, Mexico’s biggest chain of cinemas, is seeking to restructure more than $1 billion in loans, Bloomberg News reported. The global movie theater giant has enlisted Lazard Ltd. for talks with lenders including Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, HSBC Holdings Plc, Banco Santander SA and the Mexican government development bank Bancomext, the people said. Talks started early last month and the banks picked FTI Consulting Inc. as their adviser.

The British Property Federation (BPF) has written to the government urging it to overhaul UK insolvency rules, FashionUnited.uk reported. In a letter to corporate responsibility minister Lord Callanan, the group warned that the flexibility of the U.K.’s insolvency framework had led to an “abuse” of CVA processes which disproportionately impacted commercial landlords. A long list of fashion retailers launched CVAs last year, including LK Bennett, Ann Summers, Moss Bros, Clarks, New Look, AllSaints, Bair Group and Monsoon Accessorize.

Danish prosecutors said on Thursday that they had dropped charges against six former Danske Bank employees as part of an investigation into the bank’s involvement in one of the world’s biggest money laundering scandals, Reuters reported. Danske Bank is under investigation in several countries, including the United States, over some 200 billion euros ($246 billion) of suspicious transactions that passed through the bank’s Estonian branch between 2007 and 2015.

As the code red lockdown continues past the holiday season, the pulse of Winnipeg small business is growing weak despite injections of government survival cash. Jonathan Alward, director of provincial affairs for the Manitoba branch of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) told the Winnipeg Sun on Tuesday that many Winnipeg small businesses are considering bankruptcy.

The European Union can no longer legally recognise Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country's legitimate head of state after he lost his position as head of parliament, the bloc's 27 governments said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Guaido is still seen by the United States and Britain as Venezuela's rightful leader following the disputed 2018 re-election of President Nicolas Maduro, and two EU diplomats stressed the EU still did not recognise Maduro as president.