Headlines

Kenya’s budget deficit for this financial year could increase due to revenue shortfalls and coronavirus-related disruptions, the finance minister said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Ukur Yatani, who set the deficit at 7.5% of GDP when he presented the budget in June, did not say how far the gap was likely to expand, adding that they were developing a plan to cover it. “It might be just cutting on some expenditures, particularly the slow-moving projects, and… some state agencies are doing well so we are likely to get some substantial dividends,” Yatani told Reuters.

Venezuela’s finance minister on Tuesday offered to speak with bondholders about a potential renegotiation of the cash-strapped country’s debt, which economists and financial industry sources said would face challenges due to U.S. sanctions, Reuters reported. The OPEC nation in 2017 suspended payments to holders of many bonds issued by the government, state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela and utility Electricidad de Caracas, and sought to initiate a restructuring process.

Airport ground services and air-cargo handler Swissport International AG has reached a deal on a balance-sheet restructuring that will preserve its business under pressure from the Covid-19 pandemic, The Wall Street Journal reported. The debt-for-equity swap will lighten the debt side of Swissport’s balance sheet as it contends with  the impact of reduced air travel on its revenues. Ownership of the Zurich-based company will pass from China’s HNA Group Co. Ltd. to a group of mostly U.K-. and U.S.-based investment funds once the restructuring is complete.

Debt-laden Turkish companies are seeking more time to repay bank loans after the coronavirus pandemic upended plans to sell assets, according to four sources with direct knowledge of the matter, Reuters reported. Even before the virus hit Turkey in March, firms were seeking lower rates from banks after an aggressive monetary easing campaign and since then, large and small companies are looking for further revisions to nearly all of the restructurings agreed in the past two years, according to one of the sources.

Premier Oil has held talks on restructuring its debt with rival Chrysaor in a move that could pave the way for a tie-up between two of the largest UK oil and gas producers, the Financial Times reported. Premier said on Tuesday it had been talking with third parties including private-equity backed Chrysaor to refinance its debt as an alternative to an agreement reached with a group of creditors last month. While the approach by Chrysaor did not “provide better outcomes for either its shareholders or creditors”, Premier said discussions on a potential transaction continued.

In an attempt to help its battered economy recover from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Mexico’s central bank said on Tuesday that it has extended measures designed to strengthen credit channels and provide liquidity in the financial system, Reuters reported. Banxico said liquidity facilities first announced in April will be extended until the end of February 2021, while a government securities repurchase window is being increased by a further 50 billion pesos ($2.37 billion). So far, Banxico said, the measures have been successful.

Avianca Holdings on Tuesday said it had appealed a court order that last week banned Colombia’s government from providing the troubled airline with a $370 million loan to finance part of its bankruptcy restructuring, Reuters reported. The airline, which filed for bankruptcy in May due to the coronavirus pandemic’s effect on travel, said that without the loan, keeping the company afloat would become “untenable.” The loan is part of a $2 billion financing package that is key to the carrier exiting bankruptcy protection.

Despite one of the world’s longest and strictest lockdowns, the death toll in Argentina keeps rising. The increase in daily deaths from Covid-19 is the sixth highest in the world. More than 10,000 people have died so far. Argentina’s rate of about 234 deaths per million is still lower than its big neighbours — in Brazil and Chile, that rate exceeds 600 deaths per million — but the economic consequences of its lockdown have been especially dire, the Financial Times reported.

Urbaser Balfour Beatty (UBB) Waste Essex went into administrative receivership in July after it lost a case brought by Essex County Council over a malfunctioning mechanical biological treatment in Basildon, Materials Recycling World reported. The court had then to decide on what basis Essex could recover legal costs and damages from UBB. The company also requested permission to appeal certain points of the judgment. A council statement said Mr Justice Pepperall had again found in favour of the authority and had refused UBB’s request for permission to appeal.

Deutsche Bank AG plans to boost lending to commodity traders in the Middle East, even as other banks back away after a spate of defaults in the industry, to help double the size of its regional business, Bloomberg News reported. The German lender, which on Monday appointed Loic Voide and Kees Hoving as co-chief executive officers for the Middle East and Africa, is also targeting bond markets for growth in the region. “In the next five to six years, we would like to double the size of the revenues from what we have today,” Voide said in an interview.