Headlines

The UK government is continuing to resist stepping in to help Thames Water, despite its rapidly deteriorating financial situation, Bloomberg News reported. The utility needs to find new equity to stabilize its finances. Shareholders say they won’t put in more money and it’s difficult to see why a new investor would want to take on the burden of Thames’s £18 billion ($22.9 billion) debt pile. On Friday, Thames’s biggest shareholder wrote off the entire value of its stake in the latest sign of trouble for the utility.

The haircuts taken by creditors in Indian bankruptcy resolutions have increased to 73 percent in FY24 from the 64 percent in FY23, a report said on Friday, the Economic Times of India reported. A total of 269 resolution plans were approved by the National Company Law Tribunals (NCLTs) in FY24, up from 189 in the year-ago period, the report by domestic rating agency Icra said. The new admissions declined to 987 in FY24 from the 1,263 in FY23, the agency said, attributing the same to a higher base in the previous fiscal because of the Covid-19 pandemic-related stress.

Consolidation would lower the cost of capital for Latin American airlines, resulting in better services for customers, according to Azul SA Chief Executive Officer John Peter Rodgerson, Bloomberg News reported. “We’ve always been big believers in consolidation,” Rodgerson said in an interview in New York Wednesday. “The product improves for customers, and it could really strengthen a great market in Brazil that we’re seeing today.” Rodgerson declined to comment on “active” M&A processes.

China rolled out its boldest steps yet to fix its broken housing market, as Beijing sought to finally bring to an end a drawn-out real-estate crunch that has hobbled its economy for years, the Wall Street Journal reported. The centerpiece of Friday’s measures is Beijing’s embrace of a policy already being tested in some cities in China—getting city and local authorities to buy up unsold homes and convert them into affordable housing for low- and middle-income families.

Bidders in a U.S. court auction of shares that will decide the ownership of Venezuela-owned U.S. oil refiner Citgo Petroleum can be required to say if their binding offers cover claims by Venezuela bondholders in a separate court action, a U.S. District Court judge ruled on Friday, Reuters reported. The decision lets bidders seeking to place multi-billion dollar offers for a Citgo parent's shares to be asked if they plan to set aside cash or consider how they may accommodate Venezuela 2020 note holders seeking payment of $3 billion in principal debt.

Millions of Colombians will need to pay two new fees on their pension savings according to latest draft of the pension bill sent to the Lower House on Friday, Bloomberg News reported. Lawmakers modified the bill to allow fund managers to charge a fee of as much as 2% on profits, while also retaining a controversial annual fee of up to 0.7% on assets under management. Currently, so-called obligatory pension funds charge a fee upfront, but nothing after that. Congress defied calls by President Gustavo Petro to push more savings automatically into the public system.

A Belgian court ruled Thursday that all assets in the country belonging to American investment group 777 Partners can be seized, in the latest legal setback for the embattled company that owns Standard Liège and several other soccer clubs, the Associated Press reported. The decision by a court in Liege came after Standard's former owner Bruno Venanzi and shareholders of the company holding the club’s stadium requested the move, saying 777 had defaulted on a payment.

Uruguay’s first initial public offering under streamlined regulations introduced two years ago is expected to launch in late June, testing investor appetite for the South American country’s tech sector, Bloomberg News reported. Zorzal Inversiones Tecnologicas SA will sell as much as $15.5 million in shares, which it will use to buy minority stakes in at least five profitable local tech companies with annual sales of $3 million or more, said Jaime Miller, general partner at Montevideo-based investment banking firm Capital Oriental that is structuring the IPO and will also run Zorzal.

U.S. authorities charged two Chinese nationals in a cryptocurrency scam that laundered at least $73 million from defrauded victims, the Justice Department said on Friday, Reuters reported. U.S. officials arrested Yicheng Zhang in Los Angeles on Thursday, according to an indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in California's central district later that day. Daren Li, a dual citizen of China and St. Kitts and Nevis, was arrested at the Atlanta airport in April. The U.S.

A Nigerian court on Friday ruled that Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan can stand trial on behalf of the cryptocurrency exchange in an ongoing tax evasion case, Reuters reported. Binance and executives Gambaryan, a U.S. citizen and head of financial crimes compliance, and British-Kenyan national Nadeem Anjarwalla, a regional manager for Africa, face four counts of tax evasion. In a separate case, they have also been charged with laundering more than $35 million and engaging in specialised financial activities without a licence.